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‌CHAPTER 6

6 November 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

And there is not only the sound outside, there is also a garden within. There is a music inside too, and it is far more beautiful, because the outer is confined by time and space. The inner is completely free of all limitations. The inner is eternal music; once one has heard it, one goes on hearing it forever. And the birds that sing outside are separate from you, but the birds that sing inside you are not separate from you; it is your own sound, it is your own song. Take the clue from the outside but enter within, because whatsoever is outside is only a pale reflection. It has no substance, it is just a shadow. The real, the substantial is within.

Deva means divine, vimukto means freedom. There are three kinds of freedom: one is freedom from, another is freedom for, and the third is simply freedom, neither from something nor for something. The third kind of freedom is divine.

The first kind of freedom is against the past. One wants to be free from the parents, one wants to be free from the society or one wants to be free from one’s own rotten past. It is oriented in the past. It is a reaction against the past, and no reaction can ever bring real freedom; it remains tethered to the source.

For example, if your father was too much in favour of cleanliness and you rebel against him, you will deliberately start living in uncleanliness. Now your uncleanliness is a reaction to your father’s obsession with cleanliness; you are not really free. The father is still dominating in a negative way; he is dominating you as much as if you had followed his ideas. That would have been a positive domination; this is negative, but domination all the same. You will never be free this way. It is your father who is forcing you to live in uncleanliness.

The second freedom, the freedom for, is a projection into the future. It is a desire, and every kind of desire is a bondage. It is destructive to your present because you go on missing the present in the

hope that everything will be all right in the future. One wants to be free and to become a painter or a poet or a musician. The freedom is in the service of something else, and whenever freedom is in the service of something else it is no more freedom. How can it be freedom if it is not its own master?

Only the third kind of freedom, which has no connection with the past, no connection with the future, is true freedom, is divine, is beautiful. It releases you into the present: it makes the miracle happen that you simply dissolve into the moment, for no reason at all. It is unmotivated, uncaused; it is spontaneous, and whenever something is spontaneous it has tremendous beauty in it.

Deva means divine, apurno means imperfection. It may sound strange, because ordinarily the divine is associated with perfection... but not so with me!

Perfection means death. Anything that becomes perfect stops living because then there is no purpose left. Life is in imperfection; life is in growing. But once something is perfect there is no possibility of growth. Then there is no future, no adventure; all is finished, there is no point in continuing. Hence I say that life always remains imperfect; it never comes to perfection because it never comes to death. There is no death at all, existence knows nothing of death. Death is a myth, something like a mirage, something we have created.

Because we have created the ego, death comes in as a shadow of the ego. The ego is false and is already dead, hence it is afraid of death. But life is a continuum, it continues, on and on it goes. It is like the rolling waves of the ocean, on and on.They go on coming; they know no way to stop.

There is no full stop in life. The song never begins and never ends; it is always in the middle.

So my idea of divinity is that of utter imperfection because god is alive, he cannot be perfect. Only a dead god can be perfect and a dead god is no more, no more at all, so a dead god is not a god at aU. Remember this, because the human ego wants to become perfect, and perfection is not possible in the very nature of things. The moment one becomes obsessed with the idea of perfection one is ready to go neurotic. It is the idea of perfection that has driven millions of people into madness, because they are trying to do something which cannot be done, which is against nature.

There is nothing wrong in imperfection. The idea of perfection is a human invention. Can you find a perfect circle anywhere in nature? It has not been found yet! Circular shapes you can find, but not a perfect circle. Nature knows nothing of a perfect circle; it is a mind idea. And, in fact, you cannot even draw a perfect circle. Once it is drawn it is no more perfect; it is just an abstract idea. Nobody has ever been able to draw a perfect circle; once you draw it, it becomes imperfect.

If you look into Eudid’s definition as to what a perfect circle is, what a point is, what a line is, you will understand: even a line cannot be drawn perfectly, because, according to Euclid, the line can have only length and no breadth; then it is perfect. But how can you draw a line which has no breadth? Howsoever small it is the breadth has to be there. And a point, according to Euclid, is that which has neither length nor breadth. How can you make a point? It is just an abstract idea, and man has become too attached to his abstract ideas.

Look to reality and try to live the reality and don’t interfere in the reality with your ideas; let the reality be as it is. You are not here to change reality, you are here to enjoy it, to celebrate it. So whatsoever it is, dance with it, sing with it, love it. That’s the way of a sannyasin. Once a person drops the idea

CHAPTER 6.

of perfection he becomes natural. He becomes utterly in tune with the rhythm of the universe and misery evaporates.

Misery is a by-product of ideals: you want to be somebody; you cannot become that and then misery settles in. But if you don’t want to become anybody in particular then how can you be miserable? You never failed because you never wanted to succeed in the first place. You are perfectly happy in being nobody. You are so grateful to god in your utter ordinariness; you don’t want to become a perfect saint, a perfect circle. You are perfectly happy as you are, in all your imperfection. This is the way of sannyas, this is the way of tao, and this is the way of sanity.

[A sannyasin, who is leaving, said he had left in the middle of a group because he had so much fear, but it showed him where his fears were.]

They will disappear. Next time you come I will give you Encounter again!... Good. Continue to meditate and help my people there.

And the fear will go. Next time you come, you will be able to do it. It has surfaced. When for the first time something hidden in the unconscious surfaces, it creates a panic. Now you have done half the group and the remaining half will be possible next time.

I am thinking to make, slowly slowly, two or three Encounter groups: Encounter One, Encounter Two, Encounter Three, so that people can go slowly. It is too much in seven days, mm? It is going too fast into too many things, and fear is natural.

You have done Encounter One!

[A sannyasin who is leaving says: I felt very asleep all the time I’ve been here. I felt really frustrated and... veiled.]

It has been always there; you became aware here, that’s all. You have lived in sleep, but you were not aware.

And when one is not aware one goes on living the same way; there is no trouble. Now you are aware of it; this is the good thing that has happened. You need not be frustrated, you should be happy, because this is the beginning of how things change. First you become aware of a certain thing; that is the beginning, the first ray, but it disturbs your ideas about yourself, hence the frustration. Everybody thinks he is living a very alert and awake life and when he becomes aware that he is not alert, not awake, that he is fast asleep, the self-image is shattered. And when people go in search of truth and god, or whatsoever they call it, in fact they are not searching for truth and they are not searching for god: they are simply searching for some place, some methods, some ways to enhance their self-image. So this is a problem. If you come into a situation when the enquiry really begins, you will feel frustrated. If you get caught in wrong hands you will not feel frustrated because they will simply console you. They will paint your image more beautifully and they will tell you how beautiful and how spiritual you are and that feels good!

That’s how there are so many pseudo teachers around the world. Their whole trade secret is simply this: whosoever comes to them, they help the person’s illusion to become more consolidated and

everybody feels good. When you come across a real teacher difficulties are bound to be there because he cannot support your illusion of yourself; he has to cut your image chunk by chunk, and it hurts.

The first thing that Gurdjieff used to give to anybody who wanted to be initiated was his wrist-watch. He would tell him, ‘Sit in front of me and watch the second-hand moving. If you can be alert for sixty seconds, just for sixty seconds, if you can remain alert to the second-hand moving and keep alert for sixty seconds continuously, not thinking of anything else, never forgetting for a single moment what you are doing, not even distracted for a single split second, you will be accepted.’

And it was so rare, because within five, seven seconds, your mind would be distracted. It was so rare for anybody to remain alert for sixty seconds, just one minute! Now this is very shattering.

When Ouspensky, a great mathematician, world-famous author, went to him, he could not keep alert for more than nine seconds, and then he fell asleep! That’s what sleep is: he started thinking of other things. Suddenly he awoke again but by that time a few seconds had passed. Gurdjieff started laughing and he said, ‘You are a great mathematician and you have lived a life of sleep. You are a somnambulist. You are not a mathematician, you are a machine!’ Now, it hurtsOuspensky

had thought to escape from this man: this man was dangerous. He had simply reduced him into a ridiculous state. He had taken all fame and name away within a second, by a simple strategy.

Now there are many strategies all around here, not as visible; but every group, every meditation, and everything that I am doing and saying will hit you again and again and will make you alert about how asleep you are, how unconscious you are.

It simply hurts, but if you are a little understanding you should be happy, because there are a few people who will not even become aware here that they are asleep. They are really asleep. You are not so deeply asleep, mm? You are just hovering between sleep and wakefulness.

It is just like in the morning one hovers, mm? The sleep is gone but one is not yet awake. One can hear some noise coming from the outside: the milkman knocking on the door, the wife preparing the tea, the children preparing for the school. One can hear little bits floating and then one falls asleep, and then again one hearsThat hovering, that wavering state, that’s where you are, that’s why you

became aware. It is good! You are not very fast asleep; you are not snoring! Otherwise there are people – you are nothing compared to them – who are so deeply asleep that they will not become aware that they are asleep. And if you insist too much they will start dreaming that they are alert and aware. But that is just a dream!

You could not dream it either. If you had been able to dream that you are awake, not asleep, then there would have been no frustration. You could not sleep deeply, you could not dream; you are just on the verge. And this is good, because from this point you can be taken out of your sleep forever, just a little more effort. So don’t take it in sadness. Rather, take it in great hope!

Remember Sanai: If one door is closed, ten doors open. And if god takes one thing away from you he gives back to you seventy-fold. If your sleep is taken away, don’t be worried; something far more valuable is on the way. If your image is broken, don’t be worried, because an image is an image; it is not you. Now your true identity will arise out of it. But a little work will be needed.

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