21

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‌CHAPTER 21

22 January 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, bija means seed – divine seed. God exists as a seed in every being: in the being of man and the being of a rock too. Whatsoever is, is a seed of god. God is the innermost core of every being and every thing too. And the whole life process is how to help it unfold, how to help the seed to become a sprout and a tree, how to help the seed to come to its realisation. The seed remains in anguish unless and until it is realised, unless and until it evolves to its uttermost, unless and until it attains its destiny. Then there is fulfilment, then there is joy.

The anguish of man is more than the anguish of animals, because the animals are not even aware of the seed. Man is aware of the seed, of the possibility, of the potential. Man is always aware that something more is possible; what it is may not be so clear, but whatsoever has happened is not the end; life contains something more. That feeling exists in everybody, everybody remains on the threshold of it. That’s why dreams exist; dreams are glimpses of the future. That’s why poetry exists; poetry is the imagination of that which is possible and some day may become actual. That’s why search and seeking exists.

Nobody can be contented. How can one be contented? The seed can never be contented. Only a tree when it comes to bloom is contented. You can see the fulfillment in the flowers. You can see the joy around a tree when it has blossomed, but a seed is bound to be sad.

Animals are not in so much pain because they don’t know what is possible! So there is no hankering, no search. It is a kind of deep ignorance about one’s possibilities. Man is fortunate and unfortunate too. Unfortunate in the sense that he cannot be as happy as animals, he cannot be as happy as a cow or a buffalo. But he is fortunate too because he can be as happy as a buddha or a christ. The cow cannot become a buddha although the cow is happier than any ordinary man, but that happiness is below consciousness. Buddha is happy beyond consciousness; that is a transcendental happiness.

... Allow it into the heart, let it sink into the heart deeply, and start thinking in terms of your still being a seed. Much is needed: the right soil – let sannyas become the right soil – the right water; let meditations become the right water – the right manure and nourishment from the earth; let me be your nourishment. And things will start growing. Once the seed has broken then everything starts growing on its own; we just have to put the seed in the right situation. Sannyas is a situation for this seed.

I am not here to help you to become anybody else other than whom you are meant to be. I simply help you to become yourself. I don’t propose any idea, any ideology; I simply help. If a rose comes to me, I help him to be a rose; if a lotus comes to me, I help him to be a lotus. No imposition, no structure is given to you. Sannyas is utter structurelessness. Soil is given to you, nourishment is given to you, but then you have to take it from there. You have to start moving in your own way, towards your own destiny. Everybody has his own destiny to fulfill and everybody is unique.

[A new sannyasin says: I feel very deep sorrow... I don’t know why.]

That I can see; it is there. And really there is no cause for it; it is existential sorrow. There are two types of sadness. One is causal: you have lost a friend and you are sorrowful, somebody has died and you are sorrowful – but time will heal that. It has a cause, and anything caused cannot be permanent. You will find another friend, you will have another lover, and you will forget about it; only time is needed and it will be healed. There is existential sorrow which has no cause. It persists, there is no reason for it; it is simply there as part of your growth.

You have become aware of the meaninglessness of life. You go on doing things but you have become capable of seeing through them; you know that it is pointless, hence the sorrow. You know that it’s okay, it keeps one occupied, but it is just okay, nothing much; it is an occupation. You are no more in deep illusion, hence the sorrow; you are disillusioned.

You have seen through things about which you had hopes, but now you can see that all hopes are baseless. that nothing is going to happen, that one can go on hoping and one day one dies. And everything fails: money fails, relationship fails, friendship fails; everything, sooner or later. Everything comes to a dead end, to a cul-de-sac, and then one is stuck. Just somehow, to go on, one drags oneself and starts doing something else. One has to do something, otherwise life will be too much of a burden, so one keeps oneself occupied. But one knows deep down that all is futile, that it is a tale told by an idiot.

That’s what has happened, and it is beautiful. It is the beginning of transformation. You are a disillusioned being, and only a disillusioned being can search. When the world has no hope for you, you can go inward – when the outside has failed utterly, and I say utterly... even if a slight hope is there then you will go on searching, then some illusion remains.

So your sorrow is existential. It has no cause in particular; it cannot be pinpointed that a certain thing is the cause. The whole of life is the cause. You need a totally radical change in life, a different kind of life – a life which has some other dimension, some other kind of flow to it, where you can experience meaning, significance, where you can again feel the joy... not because of new illusions, because if they are illusions then again one day you will be disillusioned, but because of reality – not because of your dreams, but because of that which is.

You have come here in the right moment. This is the time to approach a master, when you are disillusioned with the world. Then the work becomes very easy. You have done half the work; the first part you have finished, so the second part is very easy. Otherwise first I have to work to make people disillusioned; that is a kindergarten type of education. That has to be done, pre-school. So I have to put them into situations where they can become disillusioned. When you are utterly disillusioned, when the outer has no more attraction, when you have seen it and found it lacking and now you have come to the point of realising that there is nothing, that it is all desert and there is no oasis, when you see that all oases are only illusions – you can create them but when you come closer they disappear – then the quantum leap into the inner.

This is good. Your sorrow will become the jumping board into blissfulness. Just start meditating, do a few groups, and within six, seven weeks, things will start taking a new form; your energy will have a new shape to it. And one day not only will sorrow disappear... because that is not much of a gain if sorrow disappears; the real gain is when bliss comes. Even if sorrow disappears, if bliss does not come it will not be much of a gain. Even if the desert disappears and there is no oasis, what will you do? The oasis has to happen. But respect this sorrow, don’t try to destroy it, because the only way you can destroy it is to create another illusion. No need to do anything, simply let it be there. Now let me work on it. You simply allow it and be respectful to it, because this is going to help you immensely.

[A sannyasin says that when he sits in meditation he has a sensation of moving to the right... he does not actually move but only feels it.]

You continue. Energy is moving, not the body. But when the energy moves inside we don’t have separate experiences of the energy and the body; they are separate, but the energy is your deeper body. When the energy moves you will feel that the body is moving. Sometimes it happens that the energy moves up and you feel your body has left the ground, that you have levitated. When you open your eyes, you are sitting where you were and nothing has happened, but the inner body has moved. Don’t interfere in any way, because that energy knows what to do, how to move. If the mind interferes... The mind is a lower phenomenon than that energy, so no interference; allow it. Later on you will sometimes start feeling that it has moved completely, that you are no more sitting the way you were; you have turned about. The final experience will come when you will see that you have moved three hundred and sixty degrees. the whole circle, and then it will stop. So don’t stop it before that. You have to cooperate, enjoy it; it is good.

The energy is getting into right adjustment with the body. Ordinarily it is never adjusted; everybody’s energy is in maladjustment with the physical body. Because of the mind, the maladjustment is there. The mind never allows anything to adjust. The mind depends on maladjustment so it can go on playing the mediator. When everything is in a chaos the mind is the master.

When everything is perfectly in harmony the mind is no more needed. The mind is needed only because there is chaos, so it has a great investment in the chaos. It keeps the chaos, it goes on creating new chaos. It never allows anything to settle. It becomes very very apprehensive if something starts settling, it becomes frightened.

Allow it, and when you allow, you will see that now it is moving one hundred and eighty degrees, then more, then more, then one day, three hundred and sixty degrees; the circle is complete. That day

it will stop. The adjustment has happened. and that day for the first time you will feel how beautiful the feeling of being in the body is, what a joy, what celestial silence. Then one feels grateful to god: he has given us such a beautiful body but we have not been able to use it. He has given us such a beautiful instrument and we have not played upon it.

And just to make you alert: some time you may start feeling that you are going up; you have to allow that too. Don’t become frightened that you are going crazy or something. And it will look crazy, because when you open your eyes you will be sitting on the ground. Sometimes the inner energy moves so strongly that it can even take the body in a kind of hop. Sometimes the energy can move so fast and so strongly that you may really turn. The physical body also may go with it. That too has to be allowed, all has to be allowed.

[A sannyasin who is returning to the West to earn money says: I have realised that all that I am thinking in my mind happens somehow... but I hate that also. I was playing a lot with that power and I thought when I’m all in my mind I’m not in the now and here. I got really confused when I was in some groups here.]

First finish this money thing (chuckling) then any day that you tell me, I will stop it; then the power will leave you. But first finish with the money thing. otherwise the power can leave right now! So I think you can keep that power for one month more.

Yes, it happens: if you can think deeply, intensely, thoughts become things, they materialise. So only remember one thing – nothing is wrong in it, only remember one thing: don’t think ill thoughts, don’t think ill of anybody, that’s all. That has to be remembered, otherwise they will materialise. Just keep that much awareness. And you can do things – continue. Think good thoughts for people. There is nothing wrong in it. It will disappear. It comes; it is a phase in meditation. That is the last allurement of th mind, the last trick of the mind to keep you in the mind. It says, ‘Look! I am giving you this much power; you can do many things.’ This is what in yoga is called ‘siddhi’, a power... the mind’s last bribery so that you remain in it and don’t go beyond it.

Right now do only one thing: don’t think of any negative thing, don’t think ill of anybody. And whatsoever good you can think, think; let it happen. When you are back, we will change it. You will soon go beyond the mind. This is the last outpost on the territory of the mind. But use it! Don’t be afraid.

[The sannyasin answers: But I also get bored when I see that everything I want, happens... There is no time lapse in it.]

That too is true. That’s why it is said that in heaven everybody is bored, because whatsoever you think in heaven is immediately materialised. You think of a beautiful woman and she comes; you think of a beautiful man and he is there; you think of food and it comes. You need not go to the Blue Diamond (a hotel, five minutes away from the ashram) or Vrindavan (our ashram juice bar) or anything. You simply think and it is there; this is the process. So everybody is bored in heaven. You will not find such bored people anywhere else. In hell people are very very intrigued by everything; there is no boredom in hell. Ordinarily one thinks in hell people will be bored. Nobody is bored; there is so much excitement and so many things, and so much gossip and news and things happening. In heaven nothing happens! That’s true – I understand your point – hut keep it for one month. And it is only for one month, so use it as much as you can for the good.

... For one month you can keep this power, and after one month it will be taken away.

[A sannyasin asks about experiences of fainting. The first time it happened it was pleasant but the second time he was frightened.It also happened a few times when he was serving mass.]

You need not be afraid; allow it. It is something from the beyond, it is a window opening to the beyond. It is the beginning of your disappearance. Slowly, slowly, you will be gone. You will go in installments, slowly, slowly. There is no need to be afraid; on the contrary, you should be happy. Rejoice that god is merciful to you, that prayer is happening to you! This is a state of prayer – it is not a fit or a swoon. If you don’t think of the beyond, then it is a fit. If you go to the psychiatrist he will say it is a fit. But he would have said the same to Ramakrishna; doctors used to say to Ramakrishna that it was hysteria. But if Ramakrishna’s state is of hysteria, that is far better than the so-called sanity. Welcome it and feel grateful, because if you become too frightened it may stop; you may close to it, and that will be really a great loss.

So allow it and enjoy it. This is the silence, the beginning, the beginning of something sacred. But whenever it comes, it comes like a shock; it shakes you to your very roots. But if you allow, soon you will start feeling that it is not a fainting. On one hand you are being emptied of the mind, on another, something greater than the mind pours into you. But that realisation can come only later. So please don’t make it a problem!

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