YOU
SHOULD FIND FREEDOM BY MEANS OF BOTH EXAMINATION AND INVESTIGATION. DON'T BRAG. DON'T BE
CONSUMED BY JEALOUSY. DON'T ACT CAPRICIOUSLY. DON'T EXPECT THANKS.
THIS
QUINTESSENTIAL ELIXIR OF ADVICE BY WHICH THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE FIVE DECAY IS CHANGED INTO
THE BODHI PATH IS TRANSMITTED THROUGH DHARMAKIRTI.
BY
AWAKENING THE KARMIC ENERGY OF PREVIOUS TRAINING, AND BY VIRTUE OF MY INTENSE INTEREST, I
IGNORED MISERY AND BAD REPUTATION AND SOUGHT INSTRUCTION TO CONTROL EGO-CLINGING. NOW,
EVEN WHEN I DIE, I'LL HAVE NO REGRET.
Man's greatest longing is for freedom. Man IS a longing for freedom. Freedom is the very
essential core of human consciousness: love is its circumference and freedom is its
center. These two fulfilled, life has no regret. And they both are fulfilled together,
never separately.
People
have tried to fulfill love without freedom. Then love brings more and more misery, more
and more bondage. Then love is not what one has expected it to be, it turns out just the
opposite. It shatters all hopes, it destroys all expectations and life becomes a wasteland
-- a groping in darkness and never finding the door.
Love
without freedom naturally tends to be possessive. And the moment possessiveness enters in,
you start creating bondage for others and bondage for yourself -- because you cannot
possess somebody without being possessed by him. You cannot make somebody a slave without
becoming a slave yourself. Whatsoever you do to others is done to you.
This
is the basic principle to be understood, that love without freedom never brings
fulfillment.
And
there have been people who have tried the other extreme, freedom without love. These are
the monks, the escapists, the people who renounced the world. Afraid of love, afraid of
love because it brings bondage, they renounce all the situations where love can flow,
grow, can happen, is possible. They escape into loneliness. Their loneliness never becomes
aloneness, it remains loneliness. And loneliness is a negative state; it is utterly empty,
it is sad.
One
can be a solitary, but that does not bring solitude. Solitariness is just physical
aloneness, solitude is spiritual aloneness. If you are just lonely... and you will be if
you have renounced the world. If you have escaped from the world out of fear you will be
lonely, the world will haunt you, and all kinds of desires will surround you. You will
suffer millions of nightmares, because whatsoever you have renounced cannot be dropped so
easily.
Renunciation
is repression and nothing else. And the more you repress a thing, the more you need to
repress it. And the more you go on repressing it, the more powerful it becomes. It will
erupt in your dreams, it will erupt in your hallucinations. People living in the
monasteries start hallucinating, people going to the Himalayan caves sooner or later are
no more in contact with reality. They start creating a reality of their own -- a private
reality, a fictitious reality.
The
Christian will talk to Christ. In his lonely cave he creates Christ, just so that he can
have somebody there, just so that he is not lonely. And many methods of hallucinating have
been developed by these monks. If you fast, hallucination becomes easier. The body becomes
weaker, you start losing control over reality. The more weak the body is, the more is the
possibility of hallucination. People in fever, illness, start hallucinating. The exact
same rule: torture the body, weaken the body, starve the body and hallucinations will be
easier.
You
can have Jesus Christ or Krishna or Gautam Buddha -- great company you can have, but it is
all imagination. The Hindu will never see Christ, and the Christian will never see
Krishna. You will see only whatsoever you believe in, you will see only whatsoever you
create by your belief; it is a projection.
It
will be difficult to project it in the marketplace, because there will be so many people
who will deny your projection. They will take you to the psychiatrist, they will think you
have gone nuts. If you start talking to Christ in the marketplace you will end up in some
hospital.
But
in the Himalayan cave there is nobody else, you are free to create whatsoever you want to
your heart's content. Loneliness is such a misery that one starts believing in one's own
hallucinations, to have company. But this is madness.
On
the one hand is the person, the worldly person, who has tried to find love without freedom
and has failed. His life is nothing but a long, long slavery to many many people, to many
many things. He is chained, body, mind, soul; he is not free to have even a slight
movement. That is one failure; the majority of humanity is caught in that extreme.
A
few escape from the world: seeing the misery, they start searching for the other extreme
-- freedom, moksha, nirvana. But they become neurotic, psychotic, they start living in
their own dreams. Loneliness is so much that one has to create something to be with.
Both
these extreme efforts have failed. Hence humanity stands on a crossroads. Where to go? The
past has utterly failed. All the efforts that we have done in the past proved wrong, led
to cul-de-sacs. Now where to go, what to do?
Atisha
has an important message to deliver to you. That is the message of all the buddhas, of all
the enlightened people of the world. They say: Love and freedom are not separate things,
you cannot choose. Either you will have to have both, or you will have to drop both. But
you cannot choose, you cannot have one.
Love
is the circumference, freedom is the center.
One
has to grow in such delicate balance, to where love and freedom can bloom together. And
they can, because in a few rare individuals it has happened. And if it has happened to
only a single individual in the whole history, it can happen to every human being. It is
your potential, your birthright.
Meditation
is the balance.
Meditation
is the bird with two wings: freedom and love.
My
effort here in this buddhafield is to give you both the wings together: be loving and be
free, be loving and be nonpossessive. Be free but don't become cold; remain warm, warm
with love.
Your
freedom and your love have to grow hand in hand, in deep embrace, in a kind of dance,
helping each other. And then the total man is born, who lives in the world and is not of
the world at all. Then the man is born in whom extremes meet and merge and become
complementaries; then the man is rich. Just to love without freedom is to be impoverished,
or just to be free without love is to live in loneliness, sadness, darkness. Freedom is
needed for love to grow, love is needed so that freedom can be nourished.
My
sannyasin has to remember constantly not to choose between these two. Both have to be
absorbed together, digested together. Love has to become your circumference, your action,
and freedom has to become your being, your center, your soul.
The first sutra:
YOU
SHOULD FIND FREEDOM BY MEANS OF BOTH EXAMINATION AND INVESTIGATION.
Freedom
can be of three types, and those three types have to be understood well. The first is
freedom from, the second is freedom for, and the third is just freedom -- neither from nor
for. The first, freedom from, is a reaction. It is past-oriented; you are fighting against
the past, you want to get rid of it, you are obsessed with it.
Psychoanalysis
tries to give you this freedom, freedom from -- from the past traumas, childhood wounds.
Primal therapy is based basically on the past. You have to go backwards to free yourself
from the past, you have to reach to the first primal scream, then you will be free. So
freedom means -- for primal therapy, for psychoanalysis and for other therapies -- that
the past has to be dropped. You have to fight with it, you have to somehow manage to
disentangle yourself from the past; then you will be free.
As
far as this freedom is concerned, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud are not opposed to each
other; they both agree. Karl Marx says one has to become free from the past, all past
social structures, economic structures. His approach is political, Freud's approach is
psychological, but both are rooted in the idea of freedom from.
All
political reforms are reactions -- and when you react you are never free. This has to be
understood. It only gives you an appearance of freedom, but it is never true freedom. Out
of reaction, total freedom is not possible. Out of reaction, true freedom is not possible.
And only total freedom is true freedom.
You
can go against the past, but just in being against it you are caught by it from the back
door. That's why it has happened again and again that with whomsoever you are fighting,
you become like him. Choose your enemies very carefully, because you will be determined by
them! Fighting with them, you will have to learn their strategies, obviously. You will
have to learn their tactics, you will have to learn their ways. Slowly slowly, enemies
become very alike -- more alike than friends.
It
happened in Soviet Russia.... When the revolution came and the communists changed the
whole social structure, the czar was killed, and a strange phenomenon came into existence.
The people who had killed the czar turned out to be greater czars than the czars
themselves. Josef Stalin proved to be far more terrible than Ivan the Terrible. Ivan is
nothing compared to Josef Stalin.
And
it is a natural phenomenon. I am not blaming Josef Stalin at all, I can understand what
really happened. If you fight with the czar you have to learn his ways, and by the time
you are the winner you have learned the ways so skillfully, so efficiently, they have
become your ways. You start practicing the same on your enemies. That's why every
revolution has failed. Persons change but the structures remain the same, because the idea
of freedom from is basically wrong.
The
second idea is freedom for; it is future-oriented. The first is political, the second is
more poetic, visionary, utopian. Many people have tried that too, but that too is not
possible, because future-oriented you can't live in the present -- and you have to live in
the present. You don't live in the past, you don't live in the future, you have to live in
the present.
Visionaries
only imagine. Beautiful utopias they have imagined, but those utopias never become
reality, cannot become reality.
If
you react to the past, you are determined by the past. If you forget the past and look at
the future, you are still driven by the past, you just are not aware of it. Looking at the
future you dream beautiful dreams, but they can't change reality. The reality remains the
same; dreams are very ineffective, impotent.
The
first, freedom from, is a reaction. The second, freedom for, is revolution. The third,
just freedom, is rebellion. It is present-oriented. The first is political, the second is
poetic, the third is mystic, religious.
What
do I mean when I say "just freedom"? Neither for nor against, no past, no
future, just being herenow, just living moment to moment with no ideology, with no utopia.
The
real sannyasin, the real mystic, is not against the past, is not for the future. He is so
utterly absorbed by the present that he has no time, no energy, for the past and the
future. This is how the rebel is born.
The
rebel is the most beautiful phenomenon in the world. Buddha is a rebel, so is Jesus;
Atisha is a rebel, so is Kabir. These are rebels. You will misunderstand them if you think
of them as if they were revolutionaries; they were not. Neither were they reactionaries.
Their orientation is totally different, their orientation is now, here. They don't live
for any ideal, and they don't live against any ideal. They don't have any ideas; no
ideology exists in the consciousness.
The
sheer purity of this moment... they live it, they enjoy it, they sing it, they dance it.
And when the next moment comes, they live the next moment with the same joy, with the same
cheerfulness. They move moment to moment, they don't plan ahead.
That's
why in the East, where mystics have been a great force, nothing like communism has
happened. The idea is Western, the idea cannot be conceived to have happened in the
Eastern consciousness. And nothing like future utopias -- More's Utopia or other utopias,
there are so many utopian socialists -- nothing like that has happened either.
But
something totally different has happened: a Buddha, an Atisha -- individuals living moment
to moment in such sheer joy that their joy is contagious. Whosoever comes in contact with
them is overwhelmed, starts looking at reality with new eyes. They give you a new insight
into the herenow. This is "just freedom." Meditate over it.
There
is no need for any psychology either, and that's why psychology has not happened in the
East. There is no need to go into past traumas, and in fact even if you go into past
traumas you are never free of them. Maybe you become more accepting, more understanding,
but you are never free of them.
Whatsoever
the founder of primal therapy, Arthur Janov, says about the postprimal man, he has not
been able to create a single post-primal man. He himself is not a post-primal man. Totally
free from the past, totally free from past wounds -- it is not possible. The way it is
done by psychoanalysis and kindred therapies, it is not possible. The past is not there.
From what are you trying to get free?
In
fact, under the impact of a charismatic psychotherapist you start creating a past
according to him. This happens: if you go to the Freudian you create a Freudian past, and
if you go to the Jungian you create a Jungian past. Now this is a well-known fact, that
the patients start creating, fantasizing, the past that is expected by the therapist. The
Jungian patient starts going into past lives very easily and starts bringing great
mysteries, esoteric, occult. It never happened to any patient with Freud. The Freudian
patient brings what Freud expects: libido, sexual fantasies, strange sexual fantasies,
incest and all kinds of sexual wounds. They never surface in Jungian psychotherapy. The
primal patient starts bringing screams which may not have any reality.
But
people are very obliging: if you give them an idea, they oblige you by fulfilling it. In
fact the patient starts feeling very very compassionate toward the therapist -- he is
working so hard, poor fellow -- so sooner or later he starts obliging. Now there are
hundreds of psychotherapies in the West, and each psychotherapist becomes convinced that
he is right. His patients befool him. And the same patients go to another psychotherapist
and they befool the other too. The patients are playing a great game, and that is
happening unconsciously.
Mind
is so vast, you can always choose a few fragments which will be satisfying to a particular
philosophy, to a particular psychology, to a particular therapy. Man is a vast continent,
man is not a small phenomenon. It can contain many Freuds, many Jungs, many Adlers. And
you can always choose -- there is so much in you that you can always find ways of choosing
certain fragments which fit with the therapy you are going through.
The
East has not created anything like communism, and it has not created anything like
psychoanalysis, for a certain reason. The reason is that the mystic is not trying to be
free from the past, the mystic is not trying to be free for something in the future. The
mystic's effort for freedom, what he calls moksha, total freedom, has nothing to do with
that which is no more, and has nothing to do with that which is not yet. His whole concern
is this moment, this small crystal-clear moment.
And
to be in this moment is to be in meditation.
To
be utterly in this moment is to be in meditation.
And
when meditation happens you will see two wings growing in you: one will be of love --
Atisha calls it compassion -- another will be of freedom. And they will both start growing
together. This brings fulfillment. Then there is no grudge, no regret. Atisha is right; he
says:
NOW,
EVEN WHEN I DIE, I'LL HAVE NO REGRET.
Life
has been a fulfillment. I have known its mysteries. I have loved, I have lived in freedom,
I have known all that was needed to be contented. I am utterly fulfilled. Life has been
fruitful. Life has not been a wastage, it has been a constant enrichment, and I have
bloomed and the lotus has opened.
To
die with your inner lotus fully in bloom, to die in love, in freedom, is the proof that
one has known life, is the proof that one has really lived. All others only go through
empty gestures; they are not living.
YOU
SHOULD FIND FREEDOM BY MEANS OF BOTH EXAMINATION AND INVESTIGATION.
How
to find this freedom? How to find this essential core of your being? It happens in
meditation. Atisha calls meditation "awareness." And awareness has to be
developed; it is only a seed in you, it can become a tree. And two things he suggests will
be helpful: one is examination and the other is investigation.
Examination
means, never allow anything to pass your mind without observing it minutely. Socrates is
reported to have said that a life is worthless if you have not lived it through
examination. An unexamined life is a worthless life.
Examination
is the first step: becoming alert to what passes through your mind. And there is constant
traffic -- so many thoughts, so many desires, so many dreams are passing by. You have to
be watchful; you have to examine each and everything that passes through the mind. Not a
single thought should pass unawares, because that means you were asleep. Become more and
more observant.
And
the second step is investigation. First observe, examine, and then start looking into the
roots. Why does a certain thing happen again and again? You become angry again and again:
examination will simply show you that anger comes and goes. Investigation will show you
the roots of anger, from where it comes -- because it may be, it is almost always so, that
anger is only a symptom of something else which is hidden. It may be your ego that feels
hurt and you become angry, but the ego keeps itself hiding underground. It is like roots
of the trees: you see the foliage but you don't see the roots.
By
examination you will see the tree, by investigation you will see the roots. And it is only
by seeing the roots that a transformation is possible. Bring the roots to the light and
the tree starts dying. If you can find the root of your anger, you will be surprised that
the anger starts disappearing. If you can find the root of your sadness you will be again
surprised.
First
examine what is constantly there in your mind, what is being repeated again and again. You
don't have many thoughts. If you examine minutely you will see that you have only a few
thoughts repeated again and again -- maybe in new forms, new colors, new garments, new
masks, but you have only a very few thoughts.
And
if you go into it minutely you will be surprised: you have one basic thought.
Gurdjieff
used to say to his disciples, "First find out your main characteristic." And
each person has a main characteristic -- it may be greed, it may be anger, it may be sex,
jealousy, it may be something else. Find out which is the main characteristic, which is
the center around which all your thoughts and moods move. If you can find the center, you
have found the root.
And
the miracle is that once the root is found you need not cut it, it is cut in the very
finding of it. This is the inner secret of transformation.
Watch:
again and again you become sad. Suddenly out of nowhere... everything was going good, and
something clicks and you become sad. And again it is gone, and by the evening it is back,
and so on, so forth. Why does this happen?
First
examine, then investigate. By examination and investigation the quality called awareness
will be born in you. Once awareness is there you have the sword which can cut all the
roots of all the diseases. And once awareness is born, slowly slowly you are getting out
of the past and out of the future and you are entering the present. You are becoming more
present to the present. You are attaining to a kind of presence which was never there; you
are becoming luminous. And in this presence, when you can feel the moment passing by, all
your senses will become so pure, so sensitive, so sensuous, so alert and alive, that the
whole life will take a new intensity. You will attain to a great zestfulness. The world
will be the same, and yet not the same: the trees will look greener, the roses rosier, the
people more alive, more beautiful -- the same world, and the pebbles on the shore start
looking like diamonds and emeralds.
When
awareness is very very deep-rooted, when you are present to the present, you attain to a
psychedelic vision of life. That's why mystics talk of so much beauty, and you don't find
it. Mystics talk of immense celebration going on, and you don't see any celebration
anywhere. Mystics talk of great music, but you don't hear any music.
And
the mystics are right -- a great music is passing by, but you are deaf. Great beauty is
all around, but you are blind. The whole existence is celebrating this very moment, as
much as it was celebrating when Atisha was alive. Existence is celebration.
But
your heart is dead. Only your physical heart is beating, your spiritual heart is
completely nonfunctioning. And without it you will not be able to see the celebration of
life. How can you feel grateful to God if you don't see the celebration? How can you feel
thankful to God if you don't see the gift? For what to be thankful? You can only be full
of complaints, regrets, grudges. You can only be angry at existence. Why have you been
created, why this suffering? You see only suffering, because your eyes can only see
suffering. Otherwise existence is a blessing, a benediction.
The second sutra:
DON'T
BRAG.
Atisha
is really beautiful, very telegraphic. His sutras look as if he is taking quantum jumps,
they seem to be unrelated. They are not; there is an inner relationship -- because when
this psychedelic vision happens to you, you will start bragging. When this awareness
happens to you, the last but one assault of the ego is bound to happen too. It is
inevitable. You will start feeling holier-than-thou. You will start moving like a saint,
you will start feeling, exhibiting, that you are not an ordinary mortal, that you are
extraordinary, that you are not of this world, that you are transcendental.
And
although all these things are right, Atisha says: Please don't brag. He is not saying that
you are lying. All these things are true; when awareness happens, miracles start
happening. Each moment becomes such a miracle, and you start soaring high, you start
attaining to new peaks in everything. Whatsoever you do becomes such a delight, and
wherever you move, life appears to be so divine. And you can see too, that wherever you
move you bring a certain sacredness to the place. Not that these are lies; these are
happening. But if you start bragging, all these things will disappear, because the ego has
entered in such a subtle way, and you could not examine it and you could not investigate
it.
Ego
will ride on your spiritual experiences now. One has now to be very careful. The
non-meditator can be careless -- he can afford to be careless, because he has nothing to
lose. But the meditator cannot be careless, he has much to lose. Treasures are there now
and they can be lost within a second.
When
you start moving to the higher realms you can fall very easily -- and the fall is going to
be great. If you fall walking on M.G. Road there is not much danger, but if you fall from
Everest it is very dangerous, you may not survive at all.
So
those who start moving in the world of meditation have to learn to be very careful. The
path is narrow, and just by the side of the path is the great abyss. A single wrong step
and you will fall -- and you will fall badly. It may take years or even lives for you to
attain to the same height again. And if you fall once from a certain space, the tendency
is that again you will fall from the same space; that becomes your habit.
My
observation is this: that meditators learn habits of always falling from a certain stage,
so whenever that state is again there, they fall. Great effort is needed to reach it
again, but now it becomes a point where the mind suddenly takes the wrong step,
habitually, mechanically. So it is better to be aware when for the first time you are
moving high, so no habit of falling is created in you.
DON'T
BRAG.
Spiritual
experiences should not be talked about. If a great need arises in you to talk about it you
can go to your master, you can share with your master. There is no danger in it, because
sharing with the master is always helpful. In the first place, whatsoever you bring to the
master he will make you feel that it is nothing: "Don't be stupid, this is just
bullshit. Forget all about it." Even if you bring nirvana to him, he will say,
"This is nothing -- throw it out! Leave it where you leave your shoes" -- even
nirvana!
That
is one of the secrets of the master in his work on the disciple. He will never pat your
back, he will never say, "Great! You are so great, you have attained!"
Secondly,
he will always make you be aware that experiences, howsoever beautiful, are still
experiences. The real is not that which is experienced, but the one who experiences. His
emphasis will always be towards the witness, towards the inner subjectivity, not towards
the object.
Somebody
sees great light -- and it is really a great rejoicing when you see inner light. You don't
walk on the earth; you are so delighted you lose all weight, gravitation no longer
functions on you. You feel as if, if you want, you can fly.
But
if you go to the master he will say, "So what? This happens to everybody. This is
nothing special, others are doing far better. This is only an experience, and experience
means something outside. Remember the experiencer, remember the one who is experiencing
the light. You are not it: you are the witness of it. Yes, light is there, but you are not
it. You are the one who has seen the light. Remember the seer."
Masters
are great artists in pulling legs. You may go standing upright and they will pull your leg
and you will fall flat on the ground. And the next time when some great spiritual
experience happens, you will be afraid even to go to the master and tell about it. This is
very essential.
And
the third thing: there are things which, if you talk about them, if you start exhibiting
them, the energy that is needed to nourish them starts moving into exhibiting them.
The
seed needs to be hidden in the soil. It should not be brought out again and again; if you
bring it out you will kill it. And these spiritual experiences are like great seeds. The
disciple has to learn the art of keeping secrets. This is one of the very essential parts
of being with a master: the capacity to keep secrets.
I have heard: a man was in search of a master who has attained to the ultimate secret. He
went to many but was frustrated finally, disappointed. Then he heard that far away, deep
in the desert, there is an old man who has attained to the ultimate secret, but to
persuade him is very difficult; he does not accept disciples easily.
This
man was challenged. He sold all that he had and traveled to the desert. It took three
years for him to reach there. Utterly tired, weary of the whole search... many times he
had decided to turn back, but it was against his ego, the ego of the seeker -- "What
will people say? Back home they will laugh and they will say, 'We had told you so
before!'"
So
he persisted, persevered, and finally reached. Yes, the old man had something; it was so
apparent, it was so transparent. He had seen many masters, but all bogus, hocus-pocus;
this man had something. He looked into the eyes of the old man and he saw such depth as he
had never seen.
The
old man was sitting under a tree, and the whole vibe around the tree was so immense that
the man was overwhelmed. He started feeling drunk. He fell at the feet of the old man and
said, "I have come to find the ultimate secret. Can you tell it to me?"
And
the master said, "Then for three years you will have to be silent, not a single word
has to be uttered. Serve me for three years in absolute silence. If you can manage that,
then I can tell you the secret, because the secret has to be kept SECRET. If you can
manage silence for three years, that will be an indication that you are capable of keeping
something within yourself."
The
man agreed. Those three years were really long, almost like three lives... desert, nobody
else, just this old man, and silence -- the silence of the desert, the silence of the old
man, and three years. It appeared as if many many years had passed. When the three years
were over, the man asked, "Now, sir, three years are over. Tell me the secret."
The
master said, "Now you have to make a promise that you will never tell this secret to
anybody -- never, NEVER. An absolute promise is needed."
The
man said, "I promise! I promise to you, I promise to God, with my whole heart, that
never will I reveal this secret to anybody."
The
old man started laughing. He said, "That's good. So what do you think, if you can
keep it a secret for your whole life, cannot I? This is the promise that I have given to
my own master: I cannot reveal it! But I will tell you one thing," he said. "The
same thing happened with my master. Three years I had remained silent, and it was as long
as it has been long to you. And then the day came, and I was so happy that for three years
I had kept silent. Exactly the same thing happened! I asked him about the secret and he
said, 'Promise that you will never reveal the secret to anybody.' I promised, and he
laughed the way I have laughed, and he said, 'So what do you think, if you can keep it a
secret, cannot I?'
"So
in fact there is no secret. The whole art is of keeping it; it is not a question of the
secret. My own understanding is that the same has been happening again and again. This
must have happened with my master and his master, and so on, so forth. There seems to be
no secret, but we have learned a lot by keeping it!"
See
the point: if you can keep a secret... whether the secret is worth keeping or not, that is
not the point. Whether there is a secret or not, that is not the point. The master may
have whispered in your ear that "Two plus two is four: now keep it a secret."
That will do -- it is not a question of what it is, the question is can you keep something
inside you?
Just
the other night I was telling Radha, "Now you have to keep this a secret." I
have not told any secret to her, but she has promised. "Yes," she said, "I
will keep it." I told her, "You are a gossip, one of the greatest gossipers in
the commune, so you have to keep it a secret." And she has promised. I don't know
what secret she has promised for, but now she has to keep it! The art is in keeping it.
DON'T
BRAG.
Don't
exhibit. A natural tendency of the mind is to exhibit. And when you have something special
-- for example, you can read somebody's thoughts -- it is very natural to go and show it
to people.
Once
a Mohammedan young man was with me for many years -- a very stubborn fellow -- and
whatsoever I gave him to do, he would put his whole energy into it. Then one day it
happened that he started reading people's thoughts. It was very difficult for me to keep
him silent about it. And this is trespass, to read anybody's thoughts; it is entering into
his privacy.
Because
I told him to keep it to himself, never to practice it, he kept it. Out of keeping it a
secret and not exhibiting and not practicing it, another quality arose out of it: he
became able to put a thought in your mind very easily without your knowing. Whatsoever he
would like to put in your mind, you would immediately act accordingly. He became a kind of
Delgado, and without any electrodes. He discovered it suddenly....
I
had sent him for a journey; he was sitting on a bus, and just the idea, just the idea,
suddenly came in his mind: if he can read people's thoughts, cannot he put a thought in
somebody's mind? out of nowhere?
Because
I had not told him anything about it, he tried. He just tried with the person who was
sitting in the seat ahead of him: "Fall down from your seat" -- and the man fell
down! He himself was shocked, but then he thought it may be just a coincidence, the man
was just going to fall down. So he tried on another, and again it happened. He became so
afraid, and the idea started torturing him: "Why not take the whole bus down the
hill?" He had to stop the driver and get down from the bus in the middle of the
journey.
He
came back to me and he said, "This is very dangerous. I tried on two persons; it
worked, and then the idea came to me, 'Why not try with the whole bus?'"
If
you enter into the world of meditation, these are small things which start happening.
Avoid them, never use them, never exhibit, and don't talk about them -- because if you
talk, people will say, "Now show some proof." If you talk about them they will
ask for the proof. Then you will start practicing them and soon you will lose the energy.
The
energy is needed for inner nourishment. When something is growing in you the whole energy
has to be turned into manure. Don't use it outside in any way. The best way to begin is:
DON'T BRAG.
The third sutra:
DON'T
BE CONSUMED BY JEALOUSY.
Now,
you will be at a loss to find the relationship, but it is there. Atisha is saying that you
may not brag but others may brag; then jealousy will arise. Others may start showing their
spiritual powers, and by showing their spiritual powers they may be worshipped by people,
respected by people, thought to be great saints. You are holding a secret in your heart,
and you know you can do greater miracles than they can do. They are being worshipped by
people, and nobody knows anything about you, you are just a nobody. Jealousy may arise,
and if jealousy arises, that is the negative part of bragging. Then, sooner or later, you
will start bragging.
One
more point to be understood.... It happens that when for the first time a meditator
attains to some psychic energy, some psychic power, the tendency, a natural tendency, is
to exhibit it. And if he exhibits, sooner or later he will lose the power. Then a great
problem arises: he cannot do it now, but now he has respectability. He is worshipped and
people expect him to do miracles. Now what is he going to do? He will have to turn to
magic, he will have to start learning tricks, to maintain his prestige.
That's
what happened to Satya Sai Baba and people like that. The first things that they had done
were real, the first few experiments that they had done were not phony. But then the
energy disappears. And by that time you have become famous, and people start gathering,
foolish people, stupid people, and they expect you, and your whole ego depends on your
exhibition.
Now
the only possible alternative is to learn magic tricks so that you can go on maintaining
your prestige. If you brag, sooner or later you will become a victim of magical tricks.
You will have to learn, and deceive people.
Don't
be jealous, because if you are jealous it will be impossible for you to keep the secret
long.
And
the fourth:
DON'T
ACT CAPRICIOUSLY.
Don't
irritate people unnecessarily by pretending to be holier than others, by pretending to be
saintly, by pretending to be special. Don't irritate people, don't act in such ways. Why?
-- because difficulties are going to arise on their own, so don't, please, add to them.
Your
very presence is going to create troubles for you, so at least avoid as much as possible
irritating people. If you pretend to be holier, then you will create competitors. If you
pretend that you are special, then there will be others who will deny. Argumentations will
arise, unnecessary controversies, enmities.
Atisha
is saying this for a very special reason. The special reason is that the very presence of
a person who has some spiritual quality is enough to create trouble for him, because blind
people don't like people with eyes. Those who have lived always in darkness don't like
people who bring light to them, they hate them -- because the presence of a man of light
is insulting, it makes them feel inferior.
And
this happens of its own accord, so please don't in any way do anything to enhance it more.
Even if you keep everything secret, a few people are going to know about it. Its presence
is such that a few people are bound to find you. Even if you escape to the Himalayas, a
few people are bound to search and seek you out, because there are seekers. There are
people who are very sensitive, there are people who have been looking for lives for
something to happen in their life. You will become known. There is no need to brag, there
is no need to be jealous. Try to hide yourself as much as you can; still you will become
known.
You
cannot hide a light underneath a bush; it will show. You cannot hide a light, it will
radiate. And once seekers start gathering around you, and disciples come and devotees
come, the society at large is going to be very irritated with you, the society is going to
be angry with you. The society will try to destroy you and your whole work and your whole
commune.
Why?
-- because you are undermining the society, you are cutting its very roots. It lives in
ambition, and you are teaching a non-ambitious life. It lives in Machiavellian ways, and
you are teaching the ways of the Buddha. It lives through jealousy, violence,
possessiveness, and you are teaching love. You are undermining its very foundation, you
are destroying its very roots. It cannot forgive you, it will take revenge. So it is
better to be very cautious.
DON'T
EXPECT THANKS.
It
is natural, when you attain closer and closer to God, it is very natural to feel that
people will be thankful to you. You are bringing a gift to them, the greatest gift there
is, the gift of God. It is very natural to feel that people will be thankful to you. Don't
expect it; expect just the contrary, that people will never be able to forgive you. The
greater the gift you bring to them, the greater will be their anger. They will crucify
you, they will poison you -- expect things like that.
Even
Jesus was not expecting that so much torture was going to be done to him, that so much
suffering was going to be created for him. From the cross he shouted to God, "Have
you forsaken me? Why? Why is this happening to me? What wrong have I done?" Deep down
somewhere he was not expecting that crucifixion was going to happen.
Atisha
is very clear in his advice to his disciples:
DON'T
EXPECT THANKS.
On
the contrary, expect that people will be angry, irritated, revengeful, they will become
antagonistic to you. Hope for the best and expect the worst. If they don't kill you, be
thankful to them.
A
disciple of Buddha was going to spread his master's word. Buddha asked him, "Where
will you be going, in what direction, to what province?" And he said that he was
going to a remote corner of Bihar -- it was called Sukha -- "because no other
disciple of yours has ever gone to that part."
Buddha
said, "Before you decide, answer three questions. First, do you know the people of
that province are very violent, easily irritable, murderous? It is dangerous to go to
them, that's why no other disciple has even thought of going to them. If they insult you,
and they are going to insult you, how are you going to respond? What will happen in your
heart?"
And
the disciple said, "You know perfectly well what will happen in my heart, because you
know my heart, because you are my heart. Why such unnecessary questions? But because you
ask, I have to answer. If they insult me, deep down in my heart I will feel thankful to
them that they only insult me; they could have beaten me."
Buddha
said, "Now the second question. They will beat you, you are going to be beaten. Then
what will happen to you? Then what will you think?"
The
disciple said, "You know perfectly well. I will be thankful to them, because I will
think they are only beating me when they could have killed me."
Buddha
said, "Now the third question. They can kill you. And if they kill you, what will
happen to you? What will you think in your heart?"
The
disciple said, "You know perfectly well, you are unnecessarily asking me. But because
you ask, I have to answer. If they kill me, while I am being killed I will be thankful,
because they have given me a beautiful opportunity, the greatest challenge."
Can
you be thankful even to those who are killing you? The greatest challenge!
"I
will be thankful to them because they are killing me and taking my life away from me -- a
life in which I may have committed some wrong. Now there is no possibility; I will never
commit any wrong. A life in which I may have fallen from my awareness... now they are
taking that life away from me, I cannot fall from my awareness any more. I will be
thankful to them, utterly thankful, because when somebody is being killed, if he can
remain alert, that is his last life, he will not be coming back to the earth. I will think
they are my friends, they are delivering me from bondage. I will always remember them with
tremendous gratitude in my heart."
Buddha
said, "Now you can go wherever you want, because wherever you go you will be able to
radiate my energy. You will be able to share my love and my compassion and you will be
able to make people alert, aware. You are ready."
Atisha
says: DON'T EXPECT THANKS. On the contrary, be thankful if something wrong is being done
to you. That is natural; you should know well, you should expect it. If it doesn't happen,
that is a miracle. If Jesus is not crucified, if Socrates is not poisoned, if Mahavira is
not beaten again and again, if many efforts and attempts are not made on Buddha's life,
that will be a miracle. These things have to be expected. That's how the greater part of
humanity lives -- in darkness, in such darkness; from their darkness you cannot expect
more.
THIS
QUINTESSENTIAL ELIXIR OF ADVICEBY WHICH THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE FIVE DECAY IS CHANGED INTO
THE BODHI PATH IS TRANSMITTED THROUGH DHARMAKIRTI.
The
original master is Gautama the Buddha, but Atisha's master is Dharmakirti. The disciple
never forgets the master, even when he himself becomes enlightened. Then too his gratitude
remains; in fact it grows, it becomes total, absolute. Atisha remembers his master
Dharmakirti. It was Dharmakirti who told him to go to Dharmarakshita to learn something
more, and it was Dharmakirti who told him, "After Dharmarakshita you go to Yogin
Maitreya to learn something more." But he was following the guidance of his master,
Dharmakirti.
Dharmakirti
is one of the very famous Buddhist masters. Many of his disciples became enlightened.
Atisha is only one of his disciples, but the most famous. He says:
THIS
QUINTESSENTIAL ELIXIR OF ADVICE....
"This
nectar that I have poured into the previous sutras has nothing to do with me. I am not the
author of these sutras. These truths were transmitted to me from my master, and they were
transmitted to my master from his master. Originally they come from Gautama the Buddha.
"These sutras are not mine," he is saying. "They don't have my signature on
them, I am just a vehicle, a medium, transmitting whatsoever has been given to me. I am
instrumental."
See
the egolessness of the person, and remember it. And what is the quintessential elixir of
this whole advice? That is how to transform the five decays into the bodhi path. What are
the five decays?
Meditate
on two states. One is the state of sleep in which the greater part of humanity is. People
are living like somnambulists; mechanical is their life, unconscious is their behavior.
They are not aware who they are, they are not aware what they are doing, they are not
aware where they are going. Their life is accidental, a driftwood.
In
this state also, bodhichitta -- buddha consciousness, or christ consciousness, or krishna
consciousness, whatsoever name you choose, you can choose -- exists. Even in those people
who are perfectly asleep, not even a glimpse of awareness, bodhichitta exists, the buddha
consciousness exists, but it is covered in rubbish. And the rubbish comes from five senses
-- the eyes, the ears and the other senses.
The
senses go on pouring into you all kinds of impressions from the outside. Whatsoever you
see immediately reaches inside, whatsoever you read reaches inside, whatsoever you hear
reaches inside. And your bodhichitta is like a diamond covered with layers and layers of
impressions. This is one state.
Whatsoever
these five senses bring to you is going to be taken away by death, because whatsoever
comes from without, death will disconnect you from it. It can never become part of you, it
remains apart. It remains a foreign element in you, it never becomes your nature.
The
second state is of the awakened one, the buddha, the enlightened one, who is absolutely
alert. A transformation happens in him. He also has five senses, but now his five senses
function in a totally different way. His five senses start pouring his compassion to the
outside world.
To
the person who is asleep, the five senses bring only impressions from the outside. To the
person who is awake, these same five senses start pouring his love, his energy, his
compassion, into the world.
When
bodhichitta is discovered, when inner consciousness is known, you are no more a beggar.
You don't take anything from without. On the contrary, you become an emperor, you start
pouring your being into the outside world; you beautify it, you become a blessing to it.
This is the transformation.
If
you are alert, you will give something to the world, you will be a giver. Remember, the
more you give, the more you have -- because the more you pour into the world, from the
unknown sources of existence more and more goes on flowing into you. You are connected
with the oceanic. The bodhichitta is the door of the oceanic. That ocean is God. From that
ocean springs go on flowing into you. You just share.
Jesus
says, "Those who save will lose, and those who lose will save."
Share,
and you will have more. Give, and you will get from the beyond. The transformed person is
continuously giving. He has so much to give, he is overflowing.
THIS
QUINTESSENTIAL ELIXIR OF ADVICEBY WHICH THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE FIVE DECAY IS CHANGED INTO
THE BODHI PATH IS TRANSMITTED THROUGH DHARMAKIRTI.
"My
master, Dharmakirti," Atisha says, "has given me this secret of transforming the
energies, their direction. Now the five senses are no more accumulating unnecessary
rubbish which is going to decay and stink. But now they have become passages of an
overflowing divine energy."
BY
AWAKENING THE KARMIC ENERGY OF PREVIOUS TRAINING,AND BY VIRTUE OF MY INTENSE INTEREST,I
IGNORED MISERY AND BAD REPUTATION AND SOUGHT INSTRUCTION TO CONTROL EGO-CLINGING.
He
is saying: "I could find Dharmakirti only because of my past searches. For lives I
have been searching."
And
the same I say to you: You are not new people, you are ancient seekers. Otherwise, there
are people living in the neighborhood who have not even seen me, and who will never see
and who will never hear, and who will never know what is happening here. Just living a few
feet away, and they will not know that something of immense value is happening here!
And
you have come from far, faraway corners of the world. You must have been seeking for many
lives. You have gathered a certain energy that knows where the buddhafield is, and you are
attracted towards that buddhafield. You know where the magnet is.
BY
AWAKENING THE KARMIC ENERGY OF PREVIOUS TRAINING....
He
said, "It must have been because in my past lives I have been disciplining myself in
many ways, that I must have gathered a certain karmic energy, that I could find the
master, that I was fortunate enough to find the master."
AND
BY VIRTUE OF MY INTENSE INTEREST...
...
my passionate desire to know the truth. Only two things are needed: energy to seek, and
passionate interest to put that energy into a certain direction.
I
IGNORED MISERY AND BAD REPUTATION....
When
you come to a master, and the master is REALLY a master, the society will be against you,
the society will create misery for you. You will have to suffer many kinds of things --
bad reputation.
I
IGNORED MISERY AND BAD REPUTATION....
"It
must have been because of my past karmic energy, it must have been because for many lives
I have been seeking and searching."
Everybody
is an ancient pilgrim.
I
IGNORED MISERY AND BAD REPUTATION....
It
is very difficult to ignore misery and bad reputation. Now for my sannyasins I am creating
a thousand and one kinds of difficulties. The world will be against you: wherever you will
go, you will have a bad reputation, mm? Just to be associated with me will be enough for
people to condemn you, ridicule you, think of you as if you are mad or something.
Only
those who are real seekers will be able to ignore all this misery and bad reputation.
Those who are just curious, they will not be able to do it. Only the fortunate ones, only
the courageous ones, only the true seekers, will be able to ignore everything, will be
able to sacrifice everything, will be able to stake everything.
Once
you have come in contact with a living master, then all else is meaningless; then
everything can be staked, it can be easily sacrificed.
AND
SOUGHT INSTRUCTION TO CONTROL EGO-CLINGING.
"I
dropped the people, I ignored what they say. Instead, I poured my whole energy into one
thing: how to drop this idea of ego, how to drop ego-clinging."
All
these sutras are nothing but the whole science of destroying ego. Once the ego is no more
there, once you are no more separate from existence, once you don't think yourself
separate from existence, immediately you are enlightened. Here the ego disappears; there
God appears -- immediately, instantly.
NOW,
EVEN WHEN I DIE, I'LL HAVE NO REGRET.
I
hope my sannyasins will also be able to say that one day.
NOW,
EVEN WHEN I DIE, I'LL HAVE NO REGRET.
It
is possible only if bodhichitta is attained. It is possible only if you have come to know
your innermost essential core -- that it is not personal, that it is universal; that it is
not mortal, that it is immortal; that it has nothing to do with time and space, that it is
eternity itself.
AMRITASYA PUTRAH: we are sons of immortality.
Once
you have known it, life is not a regret.
Life
is a blessing, a benediction.
Meditate
on Atisha, listen to his advice; it is of immense value. It is not a philosophy, it is a
manual to discipline yourself, it is a manual of inner transformation. It is the book that
can help you grow into wisdom. I call it The Book of Wisdom.
Enough for today. |