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‌CHAPTER 2

2 December 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Atit means beyond, manaso means mind. The whole pilgrimage consists only of one step: from mind to no-mind. The mind is the world: no-mind is nirvana. The mind is a state of sleep: no-mind is an awakening. Everyone is a born Buddha, but fast asleep, dreaming a thousand and one dreams lost in the world of thoughts and desires and aspirations.

Once you come out of these clouds you are a Buddha. You are a Buddha even when you are in the clouds; the only difference is that you don’t know it. But that knowing is such a difference, the difference that makes the difference, because in the state of sleep you live in hell, and in the state of awareness you become paradise.

Deva means god, vihara means dwelling in – dwelling in god, being in god, living in god.

God is within, god is without, because god is all. In fact god is another name for the all. God is not a separate entity somewhere: god is just this whole totality, all that is. But the total is not only the sum total of its parts, hence the significance of the word ‘god’. The total is more than the sum total of its parts; to indicate that more-ness, the word ‘god’ is used.

It is like a painting is not just the sum total of the colours and the canvas. It is something more: the harmony in the colours, the organic unity of the colours. A poem is not just the sum total of the words it is made of; it is something more, it has a significance which goes beyond words. Hence to read poetry is not only to read the words it is composed of. To be really in tune with the poetry one has to read much which is not written at all. One has to sense the flavour of it. One has to read between the words and between the lines, because those gaps are not just empty, they are very pregnant.

God simply means the harmony of the total, the music of the total, which is certainly more than the sum total of the parts. And to live in god is to be a sannyasin. In other words to live in harmony with

existence, merging, melting into existence and letting the existence merge and melt in you is to be a sannyasin.

It is possible! It looks impossible but it is possible. And it is not even difficult, it is the easiest thing in existence; maybe that’s why it looks so difficult. The easiest is the obvious and we tend to forget the obvious. God is, but we tend to forget. It is like a fish tends to forget the ocean: it is so obvious. The fish is born in it, born out of it, lives in it, will die in it. It is so close by, there is no distance between the fish and the ocean; and to know something a little distance is needed, a little perspective.

God is so close, that’s why we go on missing him. Once we understand this point – that god is not far away but very close by, closer than your own heartbeat then things start changing. Then you are moving into a new gestalt, you have taken a quantum leap.

Svagata. It means welcome. A sannyasin has to open his heart to existence, to life, to god. A sannyasin has to become an utter welcome, a total acceptability, a rejoicing.

People have become very closed, and because they are closed they are missing all the joys of life. Life is incredibly beautiful, but if you don’t open your eyes how can you see the beauty of it? If your ears are closed you will not be able to hear the music of it. If your heart is not functioning you will not be able to see the love that is continuously pouring on you from all sides.

Open all the doors and all the windows of your being. Let every sense become so open, so available, that there is no rejection at all in any sense, at any level. A one-hundred percent opening is needed, then life starts soaring higher and higher. Then nothing is impossible. But one has to become a welcome!

The old traditions of religion were doing just the opposite: they were teaching people how to become more and more closed. That was the ideal of the monk. My sannyasin is not a monk. The word ‘monk’ is ugly. It means a person who has become utterly insensitive to all that is, a person who has become incapable of living. A monk or nun means one who has renounced life and withdrawn into himself.

One has to live at one’s centre and yet live in the world. One should neither be a monk nor a worldly man: one should be a unity. One should not be an extrovert or an introvert: one should be capable of being both, as the situation demands. When the world calls you forth, go out! When a cuckoo starts calling in the trees, listen to it – it is beautiful – but don’t get stuck there, because there are beauties of the inner too, and there are songs that the heart has to sing.

The sannyasin should be capable of coming in and out easily, stuck nowhere. He has no prejudice, he does not divide the inner from the outer; it is all one! It is like a breath going in, coming out, going in, coming out; it is one single breath. And life should be like that – one single breath.

Sattvo. It means the state of utter balance. The Eastern psychology divides human energies into three categories: sattva, rajas, tamas. Tamas means passivity, darkness, utter darkness, inactivity, lethargy, the feminine quality. Rajas is just the opposite of tamas: the male quality, dynamism, activity, aggression, much activity, dazzling light. And sattva means the balance between the two: the male and the female, activity and passivity, darkness and light. Sattva is a state of twilight,

neither day nor night – in a way neither, in a way both, a state of utter balance, absolute balance. And to be in this state is to know, because only a balanced energy can have the right vision of reality.

If you are searching for reality only through the feminine your vision will be lopsided. If your energy is only feminine your search will be for the male energy, the other half. And if the energy is only male you will be searching for the female, because the half always needs the other half so that it can become full. And the half can never become full by searching for the other half in the outer world. For a meeting, for a moment it may be possible, but then again the separation happens. Man and woman can meet for a moment in deep orgasmic bliss, but it can be only momentary; and then despair, then frustration. Then again one is lonely, far more lonely than one was before.

Unless inside your being some chemical transformation happens so that you become whole man and woman together, yin and yang together, tamas, rajas together – you will always remain desiring, hankering, searching, and you will never be at ease. Only in sattva, the state of balance, can one be at ease. It is the state of being at home; one is a perfect circle in one’s inner being.

And both the elements are there. In the night the feminine takes you over, hence you can fall asleep easily. In the day the masculine takes you over, hence you become active. They are always there inside you, both are there: sometimes you are passive, sometimes you are active. If they can meet together.… They happen only separately: when you are active, you are active; when you are passive, you are passive. The whole art of meditation is to make them happen simultaneously so that you are active and passive together, so that your eyes are full of tears and you are smiling too: the paradox.

And in that paradox something becomes welded. In that suddenly you become one. You are no more two cut parts, the circle is perfect, and in that perfection of the circle is sattva: balance, tranquility, quietness, calmness, coolness. That is the goal of all meditations.

Sumito means a good friend. Become a friend to all that is: to the rocks, to the trees, to the skies. Be a pagan!

Just the other day I was reading about an Italian woman mystic who was burned by the Christians three hundred years ago because she used to worship stars. The only crime was this that she used to worship stars. And this should be really the state of every religious person: to worship trees, rivers, mountains, stars.

Christianity has done something really dangerous to the human mind: it has killed Christ in existence. Judas only betrayed Jesus physically; the church has betrayed him spiritually. And the people who crucified Jesus were not his real enemies because you cannot kill Jesus by crucifying his body. But the church has done the real thing: they have destroyed his whole spirit.

Now burning a woman just because she is a worshipper of the stars and prays to the stars and talks to the stars is unbelievable; but this is what has been done. And this is not an exceptional case: thousands of pagans have been killed by the Christians by the Mohammedans.

And the pagan has something tremendously beautiful in his being. He is a good friend to existence. He is in communion with existence. He may not be very articulate theologically but theology has

nothing to do with religion. He is very poetic; he is not theological but he knows the poetry of life. He can have a good conversation with a tree.

And we have to bring this quality back to humanity that people start talking to trees and to stars and to mountains and existence can be reclaimed. Man has become isolated because the bridge has been broken; and if you are not in tune with nature you cannot be in tune with god either because god is the hidden quality of nature god is the hidden face of nature god is eminent in nature.

So this is my message to you: become more and more friendly to things to people to birds to animals. Let friendship become your very style your meditation, and you will be surprised: friendship will bring you closer to god.

Veet means beyond, amo means darkness. Our real being is beyond all darkness, and if we are in darkness, it is only because of identification. We have become identified with that which surrounds us and we have forgotten ourselves, forgotten who we are. We are basically light, our innermost core is a fire, eternal fire, but we are surrounded by darkness. We never look at who we are and we go on looking at the darkness. Slowly slowly we become identified with that which we see. We are not that which we see: we are the seer. But the seer becomes identified with the seen, and that is the whole trouble.

Once it is understood and once the identification is broken and one turns, takes an about-turn and looks into one’s own centre, the sun is already on the horizon; the morning has come. That morning is liberation, that dawn. And then one can live in darkness; there is no problem. You are not darkness; that has been understood. Once it becomes a tacit understanding that one is not darkness, that one is not misery, then all is good. Then one can live in the world and one will not be part of it any more.

And that is the art I want my sannyasins to learn: to be in the world and yet not be of it; without renouncing it, to renounce it; without escaping from it, going beyond it – that’s the real art. It happens! It happens by being centered in one’s own light.

I can see it in you, I can see it in everybody, but you cannot yet see it. You will have to be turned towards your own being, a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn is needed. And that’s my work here: to help you to take an about-turn, to have a look into your own depth. And suddenly you are beyond all darkness. That is liberation.

[A sannyasin asks: I wanted to know what kind of mechanism it is that you are infatuated in a split second. How does that work?]

It had nothing to do with the man, not at all. It was something that was happening within you; it was just a coincidence that he entered. If somebody else had entered then too you would have fallen into the same infatuation. It was just an opening inside you. It was a coincidence that your opening, your silence, your centering and his centering, happened together. It was a projection: your inner mood became projected on him, he became a screen.

You will have to learn it; slowly slowly you will see. It will happen many times now. Once it has happened it will happen many times. And you will have to learn: it has nothing to do with the person, it has something to do with your inner processes.

Your being here has been of immense value to you. Something has started growing in you, something that you had always desired but had repressed. Your relationship with your son particularly has been a heavy thing on you. You could never love him, you could not embrace him, you could not take him as close as you wanted him to be. That has always been there like a weight on your chest. It has disappeared, and because it has disappeared your love is flowing.

It was just accidental that your love was flowing intensely and he entered. It was simultaneous, so your love became projected. It was a very very open moment of your being. But it will happen again and again so be a little watchful, otherwise you can get into unnecessary trouble. Just watch. It has nothing to do with the person. It can happen with a tree, it can happen with the rising sun; it can happen with anything.

Anand means bliss, punit means purity, innocence – pure innocent bliss, virgin bliss. You cannot create it: you can only receive it. If you create it, you have already made it artificial, impure. You cannot even cause it to happen; you can only be a silent awaiting. Whenever it comes, it comes; it comes like a breeze. But even if it comes for a single moment, that moment is more valuable than the whole eternity. Then it is pure bliss, not created by you, not contaminated by your mind. It comes from the beyond, it belongs to the beyond. It is divine!

If you manufacture it in some way or other.… There are ways to manufacture it – one can manufacture it through yoga postures – but then it is not pure bliss; it is really a poor substitute. One can manufacture it through sexual orgies. There have been schools to manufacture it through sexual orgies but then it is not pureness; it is just chemical, hormonal. Down the ages people have used all kinds of drugs to produce it, from soma to LSD, but that is chemical; that is not true bliss.

True bliss has to be unmanufactured, unmade. It should not have any imprint of your mind on it. Your mind should be in a completely inactive state when it comes, so it cannot disturb it, it cannot distort it; your mind should be annihilated when it comes.

So all my methods of meditation are to annihilate the mind. When the mind ceases to be, then on its own accord the sky starts pouring something into your being, something nectar-like, and there is a great dance inside. In the beginning it is only for moments; then those moments start becoming prolonged, longer and longer and longer, and finally it becomes an established phenomenon in you. Then it never leaves you.

But you can never claim that you have made it, that you have achieved it; you can only feel grateful that god has given it to you as a gift. It is a grace!

Prem means love, pradip means a lamp – a lamp of love, a light of love. Love is the only light in life; all else is darkness. You can have money and you will live in darkness; you can have power and you will live in darkness. You can be famous, you can have much respectability, but you will live in darkness. Unless you have light, unless you have love, you will not have light at all. It is only love that makes life a light phenomenon. That is the meaning of the word ‘enlightenment’. It is love that brings enlightenment. So meditate on love, and not only meditate: act on love. Never be afraid of love, and whenever love knocks on the door don’t hesitate to open it. Go with love, take all the risks. You will never be a loser.

Love will bring many agonies but it is only through agonies that one day ecstasy arrives. Love will take you astray many times, but that is how one grows and matures. Love will deceive you, love will hurt you, but that is all part of growth and the growth process. Finally, when one has arrived, one comes to know that all that has happened through love was absolutely necessary. Then one feels grateful for the good days and for the bad days, for the pleasures and for the pains, for all those dark nights of agony and for all those beautiful moments of joy. One feels grateful, simply grateful for whatsoever love has brought, because all the negative and all the positive moments together bring integration.

So become love, be loving. Nothing is more valuable than love. Sacrifice everything for love: never sacrifice love for anything else. Let that be your motto. That is the meaning of your name.

Prem means love, sudasi means a good servant, a good slave – a good slave of love. And you look almost perfect!

Serve love, let love be the master in your life. Annihilate yourself for love. Cease to be so that love can come. And through love comes god. It is love that liberates, because it is love that brings you face to face with truth, with life as it is. Love is a mirror: it reflects reality.

The only problem with love is that you have to surrender, you have to become a slave; only then can you attain to love. But the paradox is that those who surrender in love become victorious. And those who are real slaves of love become masters, because love grounds you. It crucifies you: it grounds you too. First it crucifies you, first it kills you, destroys you, and when you are completely gone a new you arrives, there is a resurrection.

So love is a crucifixion and resurrection. That is the whole meaning of Jesus’ story, that he is crucified and after three days he is resurrected again. It is a parable it is not historical – and it is a beautiful parable. To reduce it to history is to make it ugly, to make it false. It is a tremendously powerful metaphor, that those who love will have to die for their love, but those who are ready to die for love attain to eternal life.

[A sannyasin asks: I had some nightmares and I wonder if something is wrong in my body or my energy.]

Nothing is wrong with your body or energy, but something has to be changed in your mind. The nightmares come not from the body, they come from the mind. You must be having a very ambitious mind, and an ambitious mind always creates nightmares! But we will destroy that ambition, don’t be worried. Soon you will forget all about it.

Do a few groups and go on reminding me about your nightmares. They will be gone; nothing to be worried about. In these groups you will encounter such nightmares... that you will think that those nightmares were sweet dreams! It is all comparative! And once you have come out of these groups, you will feel enlightened! After each group one feels enlightened for a few days!

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