27

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‌CHAPTER 27

27 November 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, kranto means revolution – divine revolution. The political revolution, the social revolution, the economic revolution, are not really revolutions. They are only reforms, modifications, rearrangements, but nothing new ever happens through them. They remain continuous with the past. To call them revolution is not right.

The first requirement for a revolution is that it should be discontinuous with the past. And anything that arises out of the reaction against the past cannot be discontinuous with it.

You can love a person, you can hate the person – in both ways you are related to the person; love- hate is one kind of relationship. You can submit to a certain society or you can rebel, but in both ways you remain part of the same society. Submission-rejection is one relationship; obedience- disobedience are not very different, because the focus of both of them remains the same.

A child disobeys his father but his disobeying is determined by his father. He feels he is revolting, that he is going against his father, but that very going against is determined by the father. This is how revolutions remain part of the same old structure, modified here and there they are just renovations of the old structure; the continuum is never broken. So I call them reforms.

Revolutions can only be individual, spiritual, divine. Revolution can only be religious, because it is the capacity only of the individual to be discontinuous with the past. It is not the capacity of the society, it is not the capacity of a collectivity, because the collective has no soul. It has a psychology, it has a certain culture, it has a certain mind, but it has no soul. So the mind can again and again rearrange itself, that’s all, but it is the same old stuff arranged in new patterns. It is only the possibility of the individual to jump from the mind to the no-mind. That’s what I call revolution: a quantum leap from mind to no-mind.

If you go on arranging the stuff of the mind it is not revolution. A Christian can become a Hindu and there is no revolution, there is no conversion. He simply replaces Christ with Krishna. Just the name changes, that’s all, everything else remains the same. Instead of the Bible he starts worshipping the Vedas, but it is the old worship and the worshipper is old. It is the old attachment and it is the old kind of commitment; nothing new has happened. Now he no more goes to the church but he goes to the temple, and it is the same person who goes to the temple. Just by changing your church you cannot go through a revolution. Or a Hindu can become a Mohammedan, it makes no difference. Even if a theist becomes an atheist, or vice versa, there is no revolution.

I have heard: A Mohammedan philosopher once became atheist. He was a well-known philosopher, a theologian, very much respected by the community. It was a shock to the community, they could not believe it! The whole community gathered to inquire ‘Is there some truth in the rumour? It is unbelievable!’ So they asked the old man “Have you become an atheist in this age, at this time?’ And he said ‘Yes.’ They were dumbfounded. For a moment there was silence, then somebody asked ‘Then what is your creed now?’

He said ‘There is no god and the prophet Mohammed is his only prophet!’ There is no god but Mohammed still remains the prophet

Nothing has changed: he has simply rearranged words. And the mind has so much stuff that you can arrange it again and again millions of times and you can deceive yourself that you have passed through a revolution.

By the mind I mean your whole past, not only of this life but of all the lives. It is a vast accumulation: all the memories, all the experiences, all the knowledge, all the hopes and the fears and the aspirations, the imaginings and the dreams: they are all there. It is such a big phenomenon that you can always arrange it and you can always feel that now something has happened. Again and again you can find that nothing has happened. The only thing worth calling a happening is a jump from mind to no-mind. Then you don’t arrange the mind at all; you simply leave it, you slip out of it. You don’t become a Christian from a Hindu, you don’t become an atheist from a theist. You simply reach to your centre. You simply become a witness, you simply see the whole content of the mind separate from yourself; you are no more identified with it.

This is revolution. When one is not identified with the mind great benediction happens. Suddenly one has absolute freedom. It is the mind that becomes the prison; it is the mind that makes you limited, gives you limitation. When you are no more a mind you are unlimited, you are unbounded, you are as infinite as the sky. And that freedom is the goal. That freedom is god.

A real revolution will bring you to god, and god not as an object but god as your own subjectivity, god as your own being!

Anand means bliss, shraddhan means trust – blissful trust. Belief is out of fear, hence belief is not trust. It is just trembling. It is just clinging to something as a security, as a safety. Belief is trying to cover up one’s ignorance, trying to cover up one’s doubt, but the doubt remains and remains very much alive. The doubt is deeper and the belief is just on the surface.

So if you are talking about your belief you can be very articulate but you will not be able to live it. You can only talk about it, because one has to live from the centre and not from the surface, and at

the centre there is doubt. Hence the dichotomy in the so called religious people: they say one thing and they do another. Hence the hypocrisy. They are caught in a dilemma: they talk their belief, they live their doubt. Their life is decided by their centre; only their conversations are decided by their peripheries. Slowly slowly a hypocritical person becomes schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is nothing but hypocrisy stretched to its logical end. A person becomes two, and with that becoming there is constant anguish in him; he is torn apart, he lives in hell.

Trust is not belief, because trust has to come out of your bliss, not out of your fear. Trust has to come out of your authentic experience. It has not to be borrowed; it has to grow in you, it has to be a growth. Trust makes a person really religious. Then the periphery and the centre are one. Then one lives in a kind of integration.

That integrity, that oneness of the surface with the depth, that subtle harmony between what you say and what you live, gives you grace, gives you beauty, makes you a phenomenon; your very presence will have an impact. Whosoever comes close to you will feel your coolness, your silence, your joy, your god. Your presence will have a fragrance to it; a very subtle perfume will be there, and that perfume is prayer. To live in harmony is to be prayerful, to live in harmony is to live sanely and to live in harmony is to live as a whole. And then there is trust! Then you not only trust existence, you trust yourself, you trust everything! You trust even people who deceive you; even their deception makes no difference to your trust. Your trust is so deep that everything else is immaterial. If somebody deceives you it is okay, it is just a game; you can enjoy it. You can even feel good that he thought you worthy of being deceived, that he has paid a kind of compliment, because whenever somebody deceives somebody else one thing is certain: the deceiver believes that the other is innocent, otherwise he cannot try to deceive. When somebody deceives you he is paying a compliment, he is saying that you are innocent; and there can be no other compliment which is higher than that. When one comes to trust one simply trusts. Then there is no condition in it; it is unconditional.

Atit means beyond, santap means anguish – beyond all anguish. And it is only a question of finding a centre within oneself which is beyond all anguish, and there is a point. It is not a question of creating it, It is already there. Whenever you come close to it an anxiety disappears, all misery disappears; whenever you go away from it, again you are in the turmoil of the mind. Sometimes one almost touches the point, those are the moments of beauty and love and benediction, but it happens unconsciously, accidentally. Listening to music for a few moments you are transported into another world. You forget all your misery and all your sadness and all your despair and anguish, as if no problem exists for the mind. Even if somebody reminds you of your problems, you will be able to laugh – they look so ridiculous, so absurd. You are so high that everything has been left deep down in the valley, you are on a sunlit peak.

In deep love it happens, watching a sunset it can happen. Listening to the birds it can happen or just sitting silently doing nothing it can happen. But these are all accidental phenomena. You are not the master, it is not in your control. It comes, it goes; at the most you are a watcher.

But this can be made conscious. You can arrange your being in such a way that it can start happening. You can create the occasion for it to happen, and that’s what meditation is all about: creating an occasion for it to happen. You cannot directly produce it but you can occasion it. You can create all that is needed, all that is necessary for it to happen, and then slowly slowly the knack is learned; small changes make it happen.

Sitting in a certain posture can help. For example down the ages this posture has been found again and again to be helpful.

[She is sitting legs crossed, back straight and hands in her lap at rest.]

When the spine is erect and one is sitting like a Buddha something happens. When the spine is erect, making a ninety-degree angle with the earth, something happens, because in that moment your body is the most relaxed. The gravitation has the least effect on you. It is a scientific phenomenon. That’s why if you are leaning to one side soon you will be tired, because on that side gravitation will be pulling you too much. You will have to hold yourself; you will become tired.

Sitting erect, gravitation has no pull over you. Everything is balanced. You are not lopsided; it is not that from one side gravitation is pulling you more, on another side less. If that is the thing soon you will be tired. In that state – when gravitation is not pulling you at all – you start feeling a kind of euphoria.

Hands together in the lap are helpful, because one hand represents one side of the brain and the other hand the other side of the brain. One side is positive and another side is negative, and when both hands are together a circle of your body electricity is created. And when the circle is complete there is silence, when the circle is complete there is harmony. Sitting in a Buddha posture is just creating an occasion.

Then, if your breathing is also quiet, rhythmic, you are creating another occasion, deeper than the body, because breathing is deeper than the body. It is your inner body, your vital body. So if the breathing is rhythmic, harmonious, in a kind of melody, silent, deep, musical, you have taken another step towards the occasion for it to happen.

And third: if you can watch your thoughts without any choice, with no evaluation, without calling a thought good or bad, just as a detached observer, then you have created the third and the deepest occasion. Now it can happen, now it is just around the corner. Any moment you will be transported. Suddenly you will feel a great energy rising in your spine, and you are going up. This is the real high; no drug can give it. Drugs can only imitate this high; they are a pseudo phenomenon. You start moving upwards. One actually feels as if the body is rising above the ground. One actually feels, and feels so certain about it, that if one wills it, one can fly. One is weightless.

In this moment there is no thought at all; all thinking simply withers away. You are, but there is no thought, and when there is no thought you cannot even say ‘I am’, because ‘I am’ is a thought. It is pure amness, no idea arises. This is the point where one goes beyond anguish; this is the point where one enters into paradise.

To be initiated into sannyas is basically to be initiated into meditation. Meditation is the flavour of sannyas. The orange clothes, the mala, they are outer symbols; the inner thing is meditation. So remember it and occasion more and more centering, getting to the centre beyond all anguish. It is possible. It is within our reach, it is our birthright, and if we don’t claim it then there is nobody responsible except ourselves. We are missing!

Life has great treasures to give us but we don’t ask, we don’t knock on the door. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Ask and it shall be given. Seek and ye shall find. And the seeking

has not to be done anywhere else. The seeking simply means creating the occasion physically, vitally, psychologically, creating the occasion where you slowly slowly start moving to the centre. And suddenly when you are at the centre, you are no more part of the world, you are in god. That experience is enlightenment, that experience is transformation.

And never settle til it has happened, never be satisfied til you have achieved it. This has to be your aspiration from this moment.

Deva means divine, arhata means one who has arrived. Man is a pilgrim, and the pilgrimage has been long. The whole life is a search, a search of one’s self, the search to know who one is, and unless one finds out life remains mundane, trivial, rubbish. Then at the most one simply survives, but one never comes to know the beauties of life and the mysteries and the blessings. The moment one finds who one is, all doors suddenly open. Then each moment is bliss and each moment is a surprise because each moment new mysteries go on being revealed. Then life has joy, it is an adventure; then one really lives.

Arhata means one who has come to know himself... and that has to become your goal. Being here with me can only mean one thing. If you are really here with me then this is going to happen; if you allow it to, this is going to happen. If you are passionately here with me, and that’s what sannyas is all about – to be passionately with me, to be totally with me, in utter surrender – then things are not difficult. Things are very easy. It is not so much a question of making great effort. Much more important is becoming available to the infinite energies that surround us. It is more a question of becoming open, vulnerable, absorbing, drinking.

This energy-field can transform you very easily. All that is needed from your side is to drop defences, to drop your armour. Don’t be afraid, that’s all. Be open and the river will take you to the ocean. You need not fight with the river, you need not push the river, it is already going to the ocean. You can simply be in a let-go and any moment you will arrive. Whenever the let-go is total, you have arrived

[A sannyasin says: I feel a lot for Krishnamurti and... you seem to have been materialising a lot of what he was saying. I had a lot of resistance to coming. I’ve had to push myself but now I feel it’s almost too intense in the ashram for me. I’ll try to stay and work through a few things.]

It is good: if you understand Krishnamurti it will be very easy to understand me, but to understand Krishnamurti is very difficult. It is very easy to misunderstand him.

Ninety percent of the people who are involved with him are involved through misunderstanding. And there are reasons why he can be misunderstood so easily. For example, he says ‘No meditation is needed.’ And he is right, because meditation cannot be a technique, it cannot be a method, because all methods and all techniques are used by the mind, so how can you go beyond the mind by using a technique? So he is perfectly right that no meditation is needed, but this is his approach towards meditation; this is a meditation. That’s where people completely lose track.

They understand perfectly logically that no meditation is needed, but then nothing happens. Just by understanding this nothing happens. Now they are in a double-bind: nothing is happening and they would like something to happen, but now the idea that no meditation, no method, is needed, hinders them.

In fact Krishnamurti was trying to explain to them the very heart of meditation. It is not a technique, because it is not a mind thing. It is not something that you have to do, it is something that you have to be. It is not something that you can do in the morning or in the evening and be finished with it; it is something that has to spread all over your life, waking and sleeping too. It has to become a climate inside you, and no effort can become a climate, because every effort tires you, so you have to take a rest. If you have been walking then you will have to sit or lie down; you cannot go on walking forever. Walking will tire you; you will have to take rest.

Any efforts need holidays, so meditation cannot be an effort, otherwise you will need non-meditative holidays and that will destroy the whole thing. Meditation has to become like breathing, so whether you are awake or asleep it continues. It has to become your inner understanding, your inner awareness. Not something imposed, not something that you do in a particular time, for a particular motive, but something that you enjoy for its own sake, for no motive at all.

Krishnamurti says ‘No master is needed’ and he is perfectly right, because nobody can give it to you. Truth is not something to be transferred; it is untransferable. It cannot even be communicated because no word is adequate. So he is right that no master is needed, but again people will misunderstand.

He himself is the master! He is doing what a master needs to do: he is pointing the way, he is goading you towards the way, he is creating the situation in which you can become aware. This is the function of a master. But the people who listen to him will understand ‘No master is needed – very good. It is very ego-satisfying that I need not become a disciple.’ He says that no master is needed and people understand ‘I don’t need to become a disciple.’ This is the misunderstanding. He is not saying that you need not become a disciple. He is saying that disciplehood has to be so deep in you that you are constantly a disciple, that you are learning constantly: that is his meaning of disciplehood. Constant learning, never accumulating knowledge, and always remaining in the state of not-knowing: that’s what disciplehood is. He is a master, and one of the most perfect masters, but that is his way – not to declare himself a master. But then very few people will understand him.

Rarely have I come across a man who has understood him. People have been listening to him for forty years and they have become parrots. They repeat him, not understanding a single word that he has uttered! And he has not said many things. He is a simple man, his message is very simple. He simply says the same thing again and again. You can ask any question, his answer is the same, he brings you back to the same point. Still people don’t understand. People project their own ideas, their own motives.

Nobody wants to become a disciple because it is so against the ego, nobody wants to surrender. So all kinds of egoists have gathered around him. If you want to find the most egoistic gathering anywhere, you can find it around Krishnamurti, because he is giving them a beautiful rationalisation for their egos. Not that he is giving it; they are taking it. He is a simple man, very absent, almost absent, a nobody, a no-ego.

So whatsoever you have read and heard can create great resistance, because here surrender is the key, to be a disciple is the key, to trust is the key. And that’s what he is saying but his way of saying is such that only very very few people will be able to understand it.

But you have come, so something is going to happen.

[Anand siddhen – one who has achieved bliss.]

You have not yet achieved it but the name is to remind you that this has to be done, this life, this time! Many lives you have missed but this time don’t miss. Let it be the very centre of your whole life now; put everything at stake. Risk all, pour your whole energy into it, and this is going to happen.

My feeling is that this is going to happen this time! Just remain available to me and don’t hinder my processes. That’s what is expected of all sannyasins. If a sannyasin resists then he is creating a contradiction, I want to do something in him but he resists, so there is an unnecessary wastage of time and energy. If you drop all resistance things start happening in a magical way, suddenly from nowhere, out of nothing. And once you have seen it happening then things are very easy. Just one time you have to see it happen – that if you don’t resist, something immense possesses you, transforms you, changes you, with no effort on your side. You are simply transported.

So remember this, and within three months things will start moving.

[A sannyasin who is in Individual Primal therapy says: I see that I’m so much in games. I was not aware of it – the continuous game. When I cry I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong. I don’t know anything about myself.]

It is good! This is the beginning of knowing one’s self. Everybody is playing games, and nobody knows that he is playing games, because the moment you know, you cannot play. Unconsciousness is a basic requirement for continuing to play games. The moment you become aware that this is a game you cannot go on playing it any more; it is so absurd then. It is just as you can dream only when you are asleep; you can play games only when you are unconscious.

To become aware that this is a game is the beginning of the end; then the game is finished. It may continue for a few more days just out of old habit and momentum, but now it is dead; your cooperation is finished. You will see it again and again and you will be reminded again and again. How long can it be continued? You will not be feeding it any more. It can live out of the old momentum for a few days, but it is gone; it is on its deathbed.

So to know that one is playing games and to know that one does not know oneself is the beginning of self-knowledge. You have taken the first step, and the first step is the most important. It is almost half the journey, the remaining is easy.

So now remember, be mindful and catch yourself red-handed when you are playing games again. And if you catch yourself in the middle of the game then stop it then and there; howsoever ridiculous it looks to others, mm? Because they were expecting that you would play the whole thing, and just in the middle of the sentence you catch hold of the fact that you are saying something false, phony. Drop it, say ‘Excuse me. It was game-playing, I was being phony again.’ This is the first part.

And the second part: immediately replace it by something true, because just by dropping the phony is not enough, because then one will have to live in a negativity and one cannot live in a negativity. When you drop something that looks like a game then do something which is not a game, and do it immediately because that is the moment to do it. Replace it by something real, authentic, true, and soon you will be able to change the gestalt from the phony to the authentic. And that is the greatest thing in life!

[The sannyasin adds: The other thing is: I have no feeling for you. That makes me sad.]

Mm mm. No need to be, because if you start thinking you have to, then you will create phony feelings. If you don’t have, you don’t have. Be true. There is no need to play any games. It will come.

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