24

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‌CHAPTER 24

25 December 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Veet means beyond, apeksha means expectation. The root cause of misery is to expect, and the mind is full of expectations. The more you expect, the more you will feel frustrated; frustration is a shadow of expectation. Nobody wants to be frustrated but everybody goes on expecting ‘Things should be like this’ and they never are. The universe has no obligation to fulfil your expectation.

And it is not only about things: people go on expecting how persons should be. The husband expects the wife to be a particular person, a certain kind of person. That is impossible! She has her own dignity; this is humiliating her. To expect a certain behaviour is taking her freedom away, is destroying her; it is not love. The wife expects the husband to behave in a certain way, and so on, so forth. Parents are expecting their children to be this or that, and even children are expecting how their parents should be.

In this mass of expectation everybody falls into a kind of a hell. And no expectation can ever be fulfilled because the world, the existence, is not run for your private, idiotic ideas. All private ideas are idiotic. The word ‘idiot’ is very beautiful. It means having private ideas – nothing else.

The world has a destiny, but that destiny cannot be decided by individuals, otherwise the whole world would fall apart. Individuals have to lose themselves in the world stream. The person who loses himself in the world stream is the only person who is not an idiot. The person who has no expectations is the person who is not an idiot. Then intelligence flowers. You become part of the river, you go with the river; wherever the river is going is good. You don’t have a private goal: the river’s goal is your goal too. The part has to become adjusted to, harmonious with, the goal of the whole. The part should not function apart; that is idiocy. And whenever we expect, we become idiotic.

The really intelligent person lives without expectations, then all that happens is a fulfilment. Then whatsoever happens brings great contentment, it is a gift from god. Because you had not expected

anything there is no question of being frustrated. Because you had not expected anything there is every reason to be grateful.

And when gratitude arises, prayer is born.

Almasto means one who lives utterly in the present, having no desires for the future, no worries from the past, one who lives moment to moment, care-free, worry-less, in a kind of deep at-one-ment with existence. And that at-one-ment brings great intoxication, great joy, a maddening joy. Unless it is achieved a man has not really lived. Unless it is achieved a man has missed the opportunity.

That’s what Jesus means when he says to his disciples: Look at the lilies in the field. They think not, they desire not, they are utterly herenow. Look at their beauty, look at their immense joy. They don’t have any riches, they don’t have any power, yet the poor flowers of lilies are far richer than the richest man. Jesus says: Even Solomon, attired in all his grandeur, was not so beautiful as these poor flowers of lilies.

And the secret is simple. The secret is: except for man, everything lives in the present; except for man, everything is still part of paradise. Only man has lost track of it and has become deeply miserable. The past brings misery, the future brings misery.

To be in the present is to be in bliss. Almasto means to be in maddening bliss with existence, in a deep intoxication with all that is.

Madhu yamini means honeymoon. The honeymoon in ordinary life begins and ends; it cannot last forever. It brings a great meeting with the beloved, but soon it starts dissipating. Within one week or two weeks or three weeks at the most, that peak has disappeared; one settles on plain ground. It is natural: one cannot live on those heights forever. That excitement is too much; one cannot contain it forever.

But there is also another honeymoon – the honeymoon with god, with the real beloved – which begins but never ends. And it is not only that one remains on the peak forever; one goes on from one peak to another peak, higher and higher, and there is no end to it.

To relate with god is to be in an orgasmic joy without any end. It is infinite: it begins in time but it takes you beyond time. It is triggered first in time, but immediately you are part of eternity.

The honeymoon that happens between two human beings is beautiful because it gives you a glimpse of the ultimate honeymoon; but it is momentary. It is beautiful like a soap bubble. It reflects the sunrays, and the small soap bubble can become a small rainbow, but it is only for the moment; soon it is gone. It gives great joy but in the wake comes great misery too. The greater joy it brings, the greater misery it will bring.

It is because of this fact that in the past cunning and clever societies decided in favour of marriage instead of love; it was a very calculated move. Only when two persons fall in love do they have a honeymoon; it takes them to a great, romantic height, but then they have to descend and then it is very frustrating. The frustration can be avoided only if the peak is avoided.

So the cunning societies decided in favour of marriage: parents would decide and the marriage would be an arrangement. There would be no honeymoon peak, hence there would never be a fall from the peak. Societies which have opted for marriage, arranged marriage, are more stable: families are more established, divorce is a rare phenomenon.

In the modern world the pendulum has moved. Nobody who is really contemporary is in favour of an arranged marriage; it looks ugly. How can a marriage be arranged? Unless it happens, unless two persons start throbbing for each other, the marriage is just a social, economical arrangement – ugly, mundane, immoral. The contemporary mind thinks marriage is immoral unless there is love, but then love brings its difficulties.

Whenever a society starts giving more importance to love, then the family is disturbed, the society becomes unstable, because once you have seen the peak you start expecting it, and it will never come again. Now the whole life will be just downhill. So sooner or later one starts thinking ‘Why not fall in love again and have that peak?’ Then people start learning the trick of how to have many peaks in life, and the only way seems to be to have many more love relationships. They attain to a peak but intimacy disappears. These are the dilemmas: if intimacy has to be preserved, then peaks disappear; if peaks are allowed, intimacy disappears and marriage becomes a very shaky thing. You cannot trust it, and unless you trust it you cannot get totally involved in it.

This will remain so, because deep down in the human heart the real search is for a honeymoon that goes on rising higher and higher. It is not possible in a human relationship, unless a human relationship turns into a divine relationship. That miracle also happens sometimes. It depends on there being two very very artistic persons, very aesthetic, sensitive, alert and aware. If two persons are really aware and alert, then the relationship is no more human; it is divine. And then the honeymoon can remain a constant flow; it can become a continuum.

Madhu yamini means the ultimate honeymoon, which certainly begins but never ends. Let sannyas be that honeymoon. Let sannyas be the beginning of a great passionate love for god.

Veet means beyond, dehen means the body. Man is in the body but is not the body. The body is beautiful, the body has to be loved and respected, but one has not to forget that one is not it, that one is a resident in the body. The body is a temple: it is a host to you but you are not part of it. The body is a contribution from the earth; you come from the sky. In you, as in every embodied being, the earth and the sky are meeting: it is a love affair of earth and sky.

The moment you die, nothing dies; it only appears that it does to others from the outside. The body falls back into the earth to have a little rest and the soul falls back into the sky to have a little rest. Again and again the meeting will happen; in millions of forms the play will continue. It is an eternal occurrence.

But one can get very identified with the body; that creates misery. If one starts feeling ‘I am the body’ then life becomes very heavy. Then small things disturb, small pains are too much: just a little hurt and one is disturbed and disoriented.

A little distance is needed between you and your body. That distance is created by being aware of the fact ’I am not the body, I cannot be the body. I am conscious of it, so it is an object of my

consciousness, and whatsoever is an object of my consciousness cannot be my consciousness. The consciousness is watching, witnessing, and whatsoever is witnessed is separate.’

As this experience deepens in you, miseries start disappearing and evaporating. Then pain and pleasure are almost alike, then success and failure are the same, then life and death are not different. Then one has no choice, one lives in a cool choicelessness. In that cool choicelessness god descends. That has been the search of all the religions, that cool choicelessness. In India we call it samadhi, in Japan they call it satori; Christian mystics have called it ecstasy.

The word ‘ecstasy’ is very significant; it means standing out. Standing out of your own body, knowing that you are separate, is the meaning of ecstasy. And the moment it happens you are part of the lost paradise again, paradise is regained.

Nirala means unique, incomparable. Each individual is incomparable. God never repeats, he never makes two individuals alike. It is not only that two individuals are not alike; even two pebbles on the whole of the earth are not alike, two leaves are not alike. Individuality is written on everything. That is great respect from god towards whatsoever he creates.

Even great painters start copying; if they don’t copy others, they copy themselves.

It happened once: a man purchased a very famous painting of Picasso’s. The cost was millions of dollars. He wanted to be certain whether it was authentic or not, so he went to see Picasso and he said ‘I am putting so much money into it, I want to know whether the painting is really yours or is it a fake?’ Picasso looked at the painting and said ‘It is a fake.’ The woman who was living with Picasso in those days, his girlfriend, said ‘It is not! You painted it and I was present.’

Picasso said ‘That’s true, that I painted it, but it is fake because I was simply copying one of my own paintings. Although I have painted it, it is not authentic. It is a Picasso painting, but whether I copy somebody else or I copy myself, it makes no difference: it is not original, it is an imitation.’

God never copies, not even himself; that quality is nirala. Everything in existence is unique, incomparable. This is god’s love, his respect to his creation, and if we understand this then great respect and great love arise towards oneself and all self-condemnation disappears. And that is one of the most fundamental things for a sannyasin to understand: no self-condemnation, no guilt.

That does not mean that one has to become egoistic. There is nothing to become egoistic about either, because you are not superior to anybody, nor are you inferior to anybody; you are simply yourself. There is no possibility of comparison. When comparison is impossible there is no question of inferiority or superiority. And if superiority and inferiority can disappear from the world, we will have a very healthy world. It is a very sick and sickening world. Everybody is comparing, and all comparison is ugly, violent. If it gives you the idea of superiority, it is egoistic. If it gives you the idea of inferiority, it makes you ill at ease. In both the ways it is dangerous. Comparison is a double-edged sword: it cuts both ways. It has to be dropped! You are just yourself and everybody else is also the same.

Suddenly a totally different world opens up where each thing is so unique that nothing can ever be boring. When things are similar, they are boring. The world is such an enchanting phenomenon

because nothing is ever repeated – each moment is unique, each event is unique – and because it will never be repeated, live it totally! Once gone, it is gone forever.

Pari means transcendental, gyan means knowing transcendental knowing. The ordinary knowledge consists of information about objects. The ordinary knowledge is objective: it knows something outside yourself. You go on knowing many things except yourself; you yourself remain in darkness. Your light illuminates everything around you except yourself – the darkness underneath the lamp. And one can know everything about the world yet if one has not known oneself all that knowledge is futile, meaningless.

Parigyan means to know oneself, to know the knower. To know the known is ordinary knowledge; to know the knower is transcendental knowledge. Self-knowledge is liberating because it brings to your vision your own reality, which is eternal, immortal, timeless, deathless. And once you have known your own truth of being, all fear disappears and all suffering disappears, because now you know that you are beyond all suffering, all fear, all pain: you are a transcendence. You are always a witness. If there is suffering, you are the witness of it. If death is happening, you are the witness of it. And the witness always remains a witness: whatsoever happens makes no difference to the witness; the witness remains untouched. The virginity of the witness can never be lost, its innocence is absolute. To know that witness is the real knowledge.

Socrates says ‘Know thyself’ – he is talking about parigyan.

[A sannyasin says: When I become a little bit more silent inside. At that moment I feel tears coming up and I feel a lot of sadness there... When I do a meditation or reading your books or listening to your lecture it happens.]

You have to allow it and go deeply into it. Don’t label it as sadness. That labelling will prevent you from going deeper into it, because in calling it sadness you have already condemned it, and when we condemn something we cannot go deep into it. We have already shrunk back, we have already decided that this is not something good. So don’t label it, don’t give it a name at all, and you will be surprised: it is a beautiful space, just your interpretation is wrong. It is a beautiful space. It is an overflowing emotion, and it is good. It will relax you and it will take many many things off your heart which are burdening it. Those tears are part of an unburdening, and if you don’t call it sadness, soon you will learn what it is: it is a new kind of silence that you have not known before.

It looks sad because there is no excitement in it, and that’s what we call sadness. When there is some excitement we are happy and we think things are happening. When nothing is happening and the excitement is not there and we are not occupied, we think we are sad. That’s how we have experienced sadness.

Now this is a totally new phenomenon. Something is happening but it is not an excitement, it is not feverish. It is not a kind of occupation. Something is happening, and it is so new that you cannot categorise it. So don’t categorise at all; just watch what it is and go into it.

If in reading my books it comes, close the book. Let tears flow, enjoy, help them, and whatsoever is happening, receive it as a gift from god. And you will be surprised: it will give you such depth and such perception as you have not ever known before. It will keep your eyes so clean, so clear – and

not only the physical eyes but the spiritual eyes too – that you will start seeing deeply into things. Things will become transparent to you, people will become transparent. And soon you will see that this is not sadness but silence.

Silence and sadness have one thing in common, that’s why the misunderstanding arises; that common thing is depth. The depth that happens in sadness, happens in silence, but sadness is a negative state and silence is a positive state; that is the difference, and that is a great difference.

It is like sleep and samadhi. Patanjali says that samadhi is exactly like deep sleep, with only one difference: sleep is negative, samadhi is positive. One thing is similar in both: that the ego disappears. And one thing is dissimilar: that in sleep with the ego disappearing, consciousness also disappears. In samadhi the ego disappears but the consciousness remains.

Exactly like that, silence and sadness have one thing in common: both have depth, but the depth of sadness is negative and the depth of silence is positive. That difference you will know only if you go into it. If, from the very beginning, you say ‘This is sadness’ you have cut yourself off from the energy that was arising.

And remember this, not only about sadness and silence but about everything that is going to happen; many more things are going to happen: never label. Whenever something new happens the mind tends to categorise it according to some old category. It wants to pigeon-hole it somewhere. The mind is very worried; unless something is pigeon-holed the mind feels uneasy. Once the mind can label it everything is okay. Then the mind thinks ‘I have known’ and in fact, because of this tendency, we go on missing knowing many things.

Before anything is known, the mind immediately jumps in and labels it. You see a rose flower and the mind says ‘Beautiful’: finished! The word ‘beautiful’ is not the experience of beauty. And you are only using a cliche. You have heard it so many times – that the rose flower is beautiful – so you are repeating it. It is just a tape in your head, nothing else. Your heart is not moved by the rose; you are not a participant in the beauty, in the presence of the rose. In fact you have avoided the rose by labelling it. By labelling you think you are finished; now what more is there? The rose is beautiful, and your word ‘beautiful’ is empty.

Forget the word and look into the presence of the flower. Don’t say what it is: go into what it is. Go into that which is and then let the flower say something to your heart, impart something to your heart, and then you will experience beauty. And when you experience beauty, you will stop using the word, because the experience is so big and the word is so inadequate that is falsifies.

Go into it, make it a meditation.And come back!

[A sannyasin says: We really enjoyed working for you in Holland but now I’m back here, when I just have to be, I keep falling into all kinds of black holes and feel a lot of fear in me.]

First do a few individual sessions – Shiatsu, Hypnosis, Alexander then do Zazen, Awareness, and Leela.

These holes that you are feeling, black holes, you have been avoiding for a long time. They are there, and when you remain occupied, intensely occupied, you need not encounter them, but when you are unoccupied you are bound to encounter them.

This time don’t repress them. When they come, make it a point to go into that deep darkness, into that black hole. And if you allow yourself to go into a black hole it becomes a white hole. It all depends on your going or not going. Whatsoever you avoid becomes your enemy and whatsoever you accept totally becomes your friend. Black holes can easily be transformed into white holes.

Now even physicists have discovered this phenomenon, that what is thought to be a black hole is only one side of the phenomenon; the other side is a white hole. This is a very new hypothesis that is becoming more and more significant every day.

When for the first time black holes were contemplated on, discovered, it was very frightening. In a black hole everything collapses. That’s what the astronomers say, that if the earth goes into a black hole it will simply collapse and disappear. A black hole is the greatest destructive force possible in existence, and once anything enters it, it cannot come out. It reduces everything to nothing. But soon astronomers became aware of another phenomenon, that from the other side it is the white hole – because every destructive energy is bound to have a creative aspect to it; the other side of the coin. So if the earth enters a black hole and collapses, disappears, this is a death; but from the other side the earth will appear again, fresh, young, revitalised – a resurrection. So each black hole is also a white hole, even in the world of physics.

As far as my experience goes about human consciousness this is absolutely true. I don’t know whether in physics it is true or still only a hypothesis, but the experience of human consciousness is absolutely clear about it. If you avoid something it becomes a black hole, it becomes destructive. Because you don’t want to face it, and you have to face it sometimes, it is a very shattering experience when you have to face it. It impinges upon you with vengeance and you start avoiding it again; in that very avoiding you are creating it.

This time don’t avoid it. Go into it, disappear into it, let it overpower you, and from the other side you will come out resurrected. And then you will wait for the black holes to come, because now you know that each black hole has a silver lining to it and if you can go into it, it is tremendously creative. It is chaos from one side and cosmos from another side.

Once you have learned it, then it is a joy to be crucified. If resurrection is certain, it is a joy to be crucified. You get rid of all that is rotten and you come out fresh, young, and innocent. Try it! This time don’t avoid it.

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