13

< Previous | Contents | Next >

‌CHAPTER 13

13 March 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, pratibodha means awareness . . . And become more and more aware of whatsoever you are doing. Just keep one thing in mind continuously: that you have to be aware. Eating, be aware of it; talking, be aware of it; listening, be aware of it. Let awareness become a substratum of each and every activity so each activity becomes just a wave on the deeper substratum of awareness, and that very thing changes the quality of all actions.

When you act with awareness you act totally, because when you act with awareness you are in it, utterly in it. The mind is not going anywhere, the mind is not wavering; there is no other thought, because if the other thought exists awareness cannot exist.

Awareness exists only when there is no thought; when the thought comes awareness disappears. Thought is like a cloud: it immediately surrounds awareness and everything becomes cloudy. Then you see things very dimly, in a dim light, your clarity is no more there.

When you are really aware the clarity is so intense, so transparent, that there is no thought between you and the act. When there is no thought between the actor and the action the action is total, and all total actions are beautiful because they don’t leave any trace behind, they don’t create any karma, they don’t leave any impression. Not that memory is not made, memory is made, but it has no emotional load, it has no emotional colour to it; it is simply factual.

If you are angry, totally angry with full awareness, anger will come and go and you will remain unscratched by it as if it didn’t happen. It came and it passed; you remained untouched. And then you will not be loaded by it, you will not carry any repentance, you will not carry any guilt and you will not carry any lingering anger either because the act was total, it is finished. You will not be antagonistic to the person you were angry with because it is finished! In fact you will feel deep compassion for the person; deep love will arise when the anger has gone.

So each moment and each mood has to be lived with full awareness.

Dhyana means meditation and yogi means one who is on the path of meditation, a traveller, a seeker, a pilgrim. And you have been searching and seeking for many lives but you have never been persistent; many times you started and stopped. You have tried to dig the well many times but you never went all the way so you have dug many holes but the water has never come.

This time make it a very deliberate effort. Meditation can bring great pleasures, great blessings, but one has to go into it. The beginning is difficult and to persevere is the most difficult thing because the mind wavers – one day it will say, ‘Nothing is happening, why bother?’ or ‘We will do it tomorrow’ or ‘Today there are so many other things to do.’

The mind always goes on postponing, and meditation needs a very continuous effort because it is a very soft phenomenon. It is not like a rock, it is like water falling: if it falls continuously then even rocks will break, but continuity is needed.

It is a very soft, feminine energy, so if the continuity remains, by and by everything that comes in its way disappears. In the beginning things that are blocking the path are very hard and it seems almost impossible that meditation can win. Thoughts seem to be stronger, the mind seems to be very stubborn, obstinate. You try to be silent and nothing happens: in fact the moment you try to be silent, more thoughts come.

When they see that you are challenging them they give a good fight and they prove to you that it is not possible, that you should drop the whole effort, the whole project is nonsense.

So in the beginning the enemy is very strong and the friend is very soft and very delicate, almost invisible, intangible, very illusive.

The mind tends to surrender to the enemy, but if one can persist, within six months to twelve months something simply starts happening. It is only a question of constant effort time and time again and not listening to the mind. Even if nothing is happening don’t be worried.

You have been sleeping your whole life, nothing has happened, and you have been taking your bath every day and nothing has happened but still you go on taking a bath: it cleanses, it is good.

In just the same way let meditation become part of your ordinary life: one hour has to be given to it...

Each day. And if one hour can be given to it, within six to twelve months you will see something has started happening which is tremendously valuable.…

Just do all the meditations here and you can choose any one – whichever feels to be going deeper and to be in tune with you. But when you have chosen, continue it for at least one year and much is the possibility.

[A sannyasin says: I still have much trouble when you talk about homosexuality.] You have to drop that trouble...

Even when I say something against homosexuality you should not be bothered by it. If you are bothered that simply says that you are still not settled, that somewhere you are still against it. Otherwise there is no problem!

When I am talking to people I have to talk about general principles. When I say it is difficult for a homosexual to grow spiritually, I am only talking about a general principle, not that it is an absolute rule.

If a homosexual person is perfectly at ease, there is no problem; he may even grow faster than a heterosexual who is not at ease. There are a thousand and one things; man is very complex. So if a homosexual is perfectly at ease, that is the thing for him; the unease really is the hindrance.

So when I am talking, if there are a hundred homosexuals, at least ninety will try to get out of it and it is good if they get out of it: There will be ten who even if they try, will not be able to get out of it. That is simply natural to them; I’m not saying anything about them.

But my problem is that if I talk about those ten, those other ninety will remain in it and they will never grow. So I have to look to the practicalness of it. When I have to choose a truth I have to think to how many people this will be helpful.

So I have to look at the general. In ninety percent of cases it is true that through homosexuality it is difficult for a person to transcend sex and go beyond it, but exceptions are always there. And I call that person an exception who does not feel at all uneasy about it.

So drop all uneasiness – because you seem to be a born homosexual, a natural homosexual. Heterosexuality will be unnatural to you and you will have to force it. That will create problems; it will not help you.

But you can understand my trouble. My trouble is that when I am talking to so many people I have to just state the general fact. Even that is very confusing. If I state exceptions also, then it becomes difficult for anybody to understand anything of it. So my approach is that I will go on insisting on the general truth. Whomsoever can be changed by it will change, and the one who cannot be changed by it is the exception. There is no need, he need not be worried about it.

I have no condemnation about anything. That word condemnation does not exist for me; it is not in my vocabulary.

So it is perfectly good for you. Simply forget about it. Let me say whatsoever I say; don’t bother about it. Whenever it comes to homosexuality, don’t listen to what I say. You are perfectly at ease and flowing, so good!

[A sannyasin says: I’m working with Deeksha (who supervises the canteen) and I feel like she’s stabbing me. I guess it’s you and her. You’re just stabbing me, and it really hurts.]

No, you surrender. She is not stabbing . . she is not stabbing; it is just your ego that hurts.

Whenever you feel that somebody is stabbing you, first look deep down into your own self: it must be some ego. Nobody is stabbing you. Why should they? Why should she stab you? – there is no reason.

So simply surrender and then you will find that there is no problem. You simply surrender to Deeksha. Just tell her, ‘I am surrendered to you, Deeksha. Whatsoever you say I will do!’ Don’t make any conflict with her.

This is one of the things that has to be learned in the community: everybody should start learning to surrender to the community otherwise the community cannot grow a soul, it will remain a crowd.

And now I will insist more and more for surrender because now the community will grow and we will have to make a very solid base for it. So everybody has to surrender to the community. When you surrender to Deeksha it is just through Deeksha that you are surrendering to the community. It is not Deeksha, Deeksha is not the point, but she is there and she has to manage everything there so everybody who works under her surrenders to her.

And you will enjoy surrendering once you learn how to surrender.

It is very easy to surrender to me, difficult to surrender to Deeksha. So I will insist that you surrender to Deeksha; that is the way to surrender to me. Deeksha will be a harder thing to surrender to. To me you can surrender easily because I don’t come into your day to day, moment to moment work. So this has to be learned by everybody.

Sooner or later I would like to create a collective soul of the community. Many more things that you cannot imagine have to be done. I cannot talk about them because if I do it will be more difficult to do them, so I will simply go on doing them. Now this will happen more and more: everybody will have to surrender to whomsoever is concerned close-by.

[A sannyasin says she has intermittent problems with back pain.]

Just watch it, mm? My feeling is that when you are depressed and in a bad mood you feel it more and when you are happy and flowing it disappears.

If that is the case, become less and less depressed, that’s all, mm? Because the backbone really shows all the moods. The backbone is the extension of the head, they are joined together. Or one can say it the other way round – that the head is nothing but an extension of the backbone. So whatsoever is happening in the head immediately circulates in the backbone.

And there is a fluid energy in the backbone, a liquid that carries all the ripples, all the subtle ripples of the head flow through it. When you are happy your backbone immediately has a different kind of vibration. When you are joyous your backbone has a dance, a tingling inside; when you are depressed it is dull and dead, weighty. So just watch it.…

My feeling is that it has nothing to do with your body, it has something to do with your moods; you are moody! So it is good in a way: it is like a thermometer. Whenever you feel that your back is troubling you, change your mood rather than thinking about the back and immediately the back will change, mm?

And learn how to get out of dark, dismal moods. It is very easy to get out of them; it is just a decision, a question of decision. You can simply shake them off and get out of them as you get out of your clothes. But we cling, we protect them as if our prestige is at stake.

Next time when you are feeling sad, watch it: are you protecting it? – If somebody tries to make you laugh you will not laugh, you will protect it. If somebody comes and tells you a joke you will just listen to it so-so, but you will not go into it because you are sad; how can you laugh? Even if laughter starts coming you will repress it because that doesn’t fit, right now it is not the mood. So watch to see if you protect your bad moods and never protect anything wrong.

This is the misery of man – that he never protects the good mood, he never protects happy moods, joyous moods. If joy is being destroyed we are ready, unprotected; if sadness is to be destroyed we are on-guard.

So watch it . . . mm? and it is only a question of simple decision. Whenever you feel that you are in a bad mood, get up, breathe fast, jog for two minutes. Simply put it aside and get out of the room or wherever you are, jump out of that space and just feel that you are out; soon you will have the knack of it.

One can live absolutely happily every moment of one’s life through just a simple decision – that you decide to be happy now, you will not be unhappy; nobody can make you unhappy. Right now happiness happens only against all odds. You create all the hurdles so if happiness does happen it is just an accident. Somehow you could not manage to be unhappy, that’s why it has happened. Things should be just otherwise: unhappiness should happen only as an accident; happiness should become a natural flow.

So try it, mm? I would like Nirupa to become absolutely happy. And the people who are moody can become happy very easily because happiness is a mood! One has just to change the direction of the energy. Unhappy people can become happy very easily, sad people can become very easily joyous; it is not a problem.

The really difficult people are indifferent people who are neither happy nor unhappy; they are the real dangerous people. To bring them out is almost impossible because they are not sad . . . The energy is missing. If somebody is on a wrong trip you can bring them back, but these indifferent people are simply there, stuck: they are not going anywhere.

So one thing is good about Nirupa – that she is a moody person and becomes sad and this and that. You can very easily come out of it, mm?

So start living happily, decisively. Have a commitment to happiness . . . get married to happiness! Good!

[A participant of the Encounter Group says he has always had a certain heaviness about him and this came up in the group, to the extent that the groupleader felt it dampened the whole group. The participant wonders if he should do vipassana or retreat to the mountains.]

That won’t help, that will make you more heavy. That won’t help.

You can do vipassana, you can become a perfect buddhist monk; that won’t help. You can go to the himalayas and living in a cave you will become very heavy. Here you will only disturb the group. There if you live in the himalayan cave you may disturb the whole balance of the world! Don’t do that! Wait! (chuckling)...

Three thingsOne, you are not as heavy a person as you have been told again and again in your

past. The very idea has become a sort of auto-hypnosis: you have believed in it and have started behaving accordingly.

It is not a real heaviness, it is a very false entity, but you got into it and it is functioning almost as real. So on the one hand you don’t like anybody telling you you are heavy and on the other hand you wait for it; if people don’t say anything you will feel frustrated. It is a very self-defeating process. It may have been just an accident that you got the idea somehow, mm? – we get ideas accidentally.

In fact you are not a heavy person, you have a very light-hearted being, a very playful being inside, but the idea has surrounded you like a capsule. So you cannot believe it. Deep down you know you are not dead, that’s why you feel hurt, and you still pretend and cannot drop it because that is your identity, that’s how you have known yourself.

That may be the reason why [the groupleader] felt that you get stuck somewhere and don’t take the next step. The next step is being playful and that you cannot do: you want to do that so you are in a predicament.

With one foot you would like to move into playfulness, with the other you would like to remain with your whole identity of the past – as that of a serious person; that is all your bank balance.

You are in a double-bind, and whenever one is in a double-bind one gets stuck. So you don’t take the further step. The further space available is of playfulness and that is your natural space.

You are not a born serious person. There are born-serious persons: they don’t need any excuse, they will be serious wherever they are. And seriousness is the thing; nobody should disturb them because that is their nature, that is the way they have to grow.

So if you were really a serious person I would have told you to go to the cave or do vipassana, and settle with it – nothing is wrong in it; then encounter groups are not for you. But you are not a serious person – vipassana will only be enforcing the false idea that you have been carrying all along. It may suit your identity but it will not suit your nature.

The encounter group can suit your nature but doesn’t suit your identity, so this is the double-bind. Vipassana will suit your identity and you may feel a certain ego trip – that this is the right thing, this is how you always wanted to be – but deep down you will feel very frustrated and dull and dead. You will know that you are going to take poison.

So you just have to take a conscious step towards being non-seriousa conscious step towards

foolishness. Let it be clear, let it be that way. So start clowning around!... You become the resident clown of the ashram!

[Another group participant asks about a powerful relationship which grew up during the group: I remember lots of energy and accepting my sexual problem with her.]

Very good... that’s very good. Whenever it happens, with whomsoever it happens, if you feel flow it is divine. All love is divine.

One should move in love as one moves in a temple, with great reverence and gratitude. And with whomsoever it happens, it always happens with god. Only that quality should be remembered, then every love relationship becomes a step and leads you higher and higher.

And all love is liberating, nothing else liberates.

It centres you, it grounds you, it liberates you, it gives you the feeling of how you should be. It makes you feel accepted and welcomed on the earth, it makes you feel it is your home.

Sometimes through a woman, sometimes through a man, sometimes through a friend, sometimes even through a stranger – one never knows . . . The ways of love are very subtle and unknown.

All that we know is really irrelevant, all that we know is non-essential. When love happens between two human beings nobody knows how it happened. At the most we can just relate the accident of how it happened but nobody really knows how it happened.

It is something beyond the mind, it is something that takes possession of you. And that’s why when love takes possession of the person he is no more the same person: he has some different quality of energy, different possibilities, different potentialities.

In fact when a woman loves you she creates you in her love as a totally new being. When you love a woman you create a totally new woman; she was never that before. Love is creative.

And when you look at a woman with deep gratitude she starts rising higher, immediately; she has to fulfill! You challenge her deepest layer: she sees her face in your eyes, and nobody has looked that way, nobody has challenged her that way. Now her deepest core resounds, vibrates, and she starts rising; she has to prove that you are right!

You see your face in her eyes and you have to prove that she is right. You both create each other.

In a love moment two bodies soar very high, they reach the very limit of the sky! That’s why when you come down you cannot believe that it has happened to you. When you come back down to the plane you cannot believe that those peaks were really there. Did you fantasize them? Was it just imagination or a dream or what? You cannot believe, they are so incredibly unbelievable.

But whatsoever happens in love is your reality, your optimum reality, and whatsoever happens without love is your minimum reality. Without love you are at the lowest rung. With love you reach the highest rung of the ladder. Both are your reality!

And once you understand it, by and by it is possible to move higher and higher; it is possible to live at the highest rung forever. If it can happen for a moment it can happen for the whole of eternity.

So let love be a glimpse of your reality and then start living that reality more and more. If with one human being love can give you such a paradise, then what to say if you love many, many human beings? And not only human beings: you start loving animals and birds and trees, and by and by you forget whom you are loving; you simply become love. Then you exist at the himalayan peak. You are a god.

That’s what Jesus means when he says ‘God is love’, because at the peak of love one is realising one’s godhood! So every love brings you to godhood and every love gives you a glimpse, a taste of the unknown.

So whenever it happens, with whomsoever it happens, feel grateful. Tremendously prayerful!.It

has been good!

< Previous | Contents | Next >