The Mysteries of the Seven Bodies

In yesterday’s talk you said that the seeker should first worry about his own receptivity and should not go begging from door to door. But the very meaning of a sadhak is that there are obstacles on his path of spiritual growth. He does not know how to be receptive. Is it difficult to meet the right guide?

To seek and to ask are two different things. Actually, only he who does not want to seek asks. To seek and to ask are not one and the same; rather, they are contradictory. He who wants to avoid seeking asks. The process of seeking and the process of begging are very different. In asking the attention is centered on the other – on the giver; in seeking the attention is centered on oneself – on the receiver. To say that there are obstacles in the path of spiritual growth means there are obstacles within the seeker himself. The path too lies within and it is not very difficult to understand one’s own hindrances. It will have to be explained at length what obstacles are and how they can be removed. Yesterday I told you about the seven bodies. We shall talk in greater detail about these and it will become clear to you...

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The Revolution Called Ecstasy


How is it that we usually choose to be unhappy? How is it that we don’t feel aware that it is a choice?

Part One
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This is one of the most complex human problems. It has to be considered very deeply, and it is not theoretical — it concerns you. This is how everybody is behaving...always choosing the wrong, always choosing the sad, the depressed, the miserable. There must be profound reasons for it, and there are.

The first thing: the way human beings are brought up plays a very definite role in it. If you are unhappy you gain something from it, you always gain. If you are happy you always lose.

From the very beginning an alert child starts feeling the distinction. Whenever he is unhappy everybody is sympathetic towards him, he gains sympathy. Everybody tries to be loving towards him, he gains love. And even more than that: whenever he is unhappy everybody is attentive towards him, he gains attention. Attention works like food for the ego, a very alcoholic stimulant. It gives you energy; you feel you are somebody. Hence so much need, so much desire to get attention.

If everybody is looking at you, you become important. If nobody is looking at you, you feel as if you are not there, you are no more, you are a non-being. People looking at you, people caring about you gives you energy. The ego exists in relationship. The more people pay attention to you, the more you gain ego. If nobody looks at you, the ego dissolves. If everybody has completely forgotten you, how can the ego exist? How can you feel that you are? Hence the need for societies, associations, clubs. All over the world clubs exist — Rotary, Lions’, Masonic Lodges...millions of clubs and societies. These societies and clubs exist only to give attention to people who cannot get attention in other ways.

It is difficult to become a president of a country. It is difficult to become a mayor of a corporation. It is easier to become the president of a Lions’ Club; then a particular group gives you attention. You are very important — doing nothing! Lions’ Clubs, Rotary Clubs...doing nothing at all but still they feel they are something important. The president goes on changing; one this year, another next year. Everybody gets attention. It is a mutual arrangement, and everybody feels important.

From the very beginning the child learns the politics. The politics are: look miserable, then you get sympathy, then everybody is attentive. Look ill; you become important. An ill child becomes dictatorial; the whole family has to follow him — whatsoever he says is the rule.

When he is happy nobody listens to him. When he is healthy nobody cares about him. When he is perfect nobody is attentive. From the very beginning we start choosing the miserable, the sad, the pessimistic, the darker side of life. That’s one thing.

A second thing related to it is: whenever you are happy, whenever you are joyful, whenever you feel ecstatic and blissful, everybody is jealous of you. Jealousy means that everybody is antagonistic, nobody is friendly; at that moment everybody is an enemy. So you have learnt not to be so ecstatic that everybody becomes inimical towards you — not to show your bliss, not to laugh.

Look at people when they laugh. They laugh very calculatingly. It is not a belly laugh, it is not coming from the very depth of their being. They first look at you, then they judge...and then they laugh. And they laugh to a particular extent, to the extent you will tolerate, to the extent which will not be taken amiss, the extent where nobody will become jealous.

Even our smiles are political. Laughter has disappeared; bliss has become absolutely unknown, and to be ecstatic is almost impossible because it is not allowed. If you are miserable nobody will think you are mad. If you are ecstatic and dancing everybody will think you are mad. Dance is rejected, singing is not accepted. A blissful man...we think something has gone wrong.

What type of society is this? If someone is miserable everything is okay; he fits because the whole society is miserable, more or less. He is a member; he belongs to us. If somebody becomes ecstatic we think he has gone berserk, insane. He doesn’t belong to us...and we feel jealous.

Because of jealousy we condemn him. Because of jealousy we will try in every way to put him back to his old state. We call that old state normality. Psychoanalysts will help, psychiatrists will help to bring that man to the normal misery.

In the West, the whole society is turning against psychedelics. The law, the state, the government, the legal experts, the high courts, the legislators, priests, popes...everybody is turning against them. They are not really against psychedelics, they are against people being ecstatic. They are not against alcohol, they are not against other things which are drugs, but they are against psychedelics because psychedelics can create a chemical change in you. And the old crust that the society has created around you, the imprisonment in misery, can be broken, there can be a breakthrough. You can come out of it, even for a few moments, and be ecstatic.

Society cannot allow ecstasy. Ecstasy is the greatest revolution. I repeat it: ecstasy is the greatest revolution. If people become ecstatic the whole society will have to change, because this society is based on misery.

If people are blissful you cannot lead them to war — to Vietnam, or to Egypt, or to Israel. No. Someone who is blissful will just laugh and say: This is nonsense!

If people are blissful you cannot make them obsessed with money. They will not waste their whole lives just accumulating money. It will look like madness to them that a person is destroying his whole life, just exchanging his life for dead money, dying and accumulating money. And the money will be there when he is dead. This is absolute madness! But this madness cannot be seen unless you are ecstatic.

If people are ecstatic then the whole pattern of this society will have to change. This society exists on misery. Misery is a great investment for this society. So we bring up children...from the very beginning we create a leaning towards misery. That’s why they always choose misery.

In the morning for everybody there is a choice. And not only in the morning, every moment there is a choice to be miserable or to be happy. You always choose to be miserable because there is an investment. You always choose to be miserable because that has become a habit, a pattern, you have always done that. You have become efficient at doing it, it has become a track. The moment your mind has to choose, it immediately flows towards misery.

Misery seems to be downhill, ecstasy seems to be uphill. Ecstasy looks very difficult to reach but it is not so. The real thing is quite the opposite: ecstasy is downhill, misery is uphill. Misery is a very difficult thing to achieve, but you have achieved it, you have done the impossible...because misery is so anti-nature. Nobody wants to be miserable and everybody is miserable.

Society has done a great job. Education, culture, and the culturing agencies, parents, teachers — they have done a great job. They have made miserable creatures out of ecstatic creators. Every child is born ecstatic. Every child is born a god. And every man dies a madman.

Unless you recover, unless you reclaim your childhood, you will not be able to become the white clouds I am talking about. This is the whole work for you, the whole sadhana — how to regain childhood, how to reclaim it. If you can become children again then there is no misery.

I don’t mean that for a child there are no moments of misery — there are. But still there is no misery. Try to understand this.

A child can become miserable, he can be unhappy, intensely unhappy in a moment, but he is so total in that unhappiness, he is so one with that unhappiness that there is no division. The child separate from unhappiness is not there. The child is not looking at his unhappiness separate, divided. The child is unhappiness — he is so involved in it. When you become one with unhappiness, unhappiness is not unhappiness. If you become so one with it, even that has a beauty of its own.

So look at a child — an unspoilt child, I mean. If he is angry, then his whole energy becomes anger; nothing is left behind, no holding back. He has moved and become anger; there is nobody manipulating and controlling it. There is no mind. The child has become anger; he is not angry, he has become the anger. And then see the beauty, the flowering of anger. The child never looks ugly; even in anger he looks beautiful. He just looks more intense, more vital, more alive...a volcano ready to erupt. Such a small child, such a great energy, such an atomic being — with the whole universe to explode!

And after this anger the child will be silent. After this anger the child will be very peaceful. After this anger the child will relax. We may think it is very miserable to be in that anger but the child is not miserable — he has enjoyed it.

If you become one with anything you become blissful. If you separate yourself from anything, even if it is happiness, you will become miserable.

So this is the key. To be separate as an ego is the base of all misery; to be one, to be flowing, with whatsoever life brings to you, to be in it so intensely, so totally, that you are no more, you are lost, then everything is blissful.

The choice is there, but you have even become unaware of the choice. You have been choosing the wrong so continuously, it has become such a dead habit, that you simply choose it automatically. There is no choice left.

Become alert. Each moment when you are choosing to be miserable remember: this is your choice. Even this mindfulness will help, the alertness that this is my choice and I am responsible, and this is what I am doing to myself, this is my doing. Immediately you will feel a difference. The quality of mind will have changed. It will be easier for you to move towards happiness.

Once you know that this is your choice, then the whole thing has become a game. Then if you love to be miserable, be miserable, but remember, this is your choice and don’t complain. There is nobody else who is responsible for it. This is your drama. If you like this way, if you like a miserable way, if you want to pass through life in misery, then this is your choice, your game. You are playing it. Play it well!

Then don’t go and ask people how not to be miserable. That is absurd. Don’t go and ask masters and gurus how to be happy. The so-called gurus exist because you are foolish. You create the misery, and then you go and ask others how to uncreate it. And you will go on creating misery because you are not alert to what you are doing. From this very moment try, try to be happy and blissful.

When awareness and this thoughtlessness meet, it is meditation. That is why Patanjali says that samadhi is like SUSHUPTI. The highest ecstasy, samadhi, is like the deepest sleep, with only one difference: in it you are not asleep. But the quality is the same — thoughtless, dreamless, undisturbed, without a single ripple, totally calm and quiet, but alert. When you are aware and there is no thought, you will feel a sudden transformation in your consciousness. The center changes. You are thrown back. You are thrown to the heart. And from the heart, when you look at the world, there is no world, there is only God. From the head, when you look towards existence, there is no God, there is only material existence.

 

photo credit: Meditation paintings

 

 

“ Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny - he or she has something to fulfill, some message that has to be delivered, some work that has to be completed. You are not here accidentally - you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.”

 

Desire as Such is a bondage, because when you desire, you become dependent on the other, on the desired object. Whether it is a woman, money, a man, power, prestige, it does not matter — it is desire, and desire brings bondage. Why?

It is simple. When you desire something, your joy depends on that something. If it is taken away, you are miserable; if it is given to you, you are happy, but only for the moment. That too has to be understood. Whenever your desire is fulfilled it is only for the moment that you feel joy. It is fleeting, because once you have got it, again the mind starts desiring for more, for something else. Mind exists in desiring; hence mind can never leave you without desire. If you are without desire mind dies immediately. That’s the whole secret of meditation.

Create desirelessness and mind is gone, gone forever, never to return back. If desire is there, mind will come. Desire is the root from where the mind comes in. Desire is its nourishment, its food, its very life, its breath. So mind cannot leave you without desire. If you desire God — even God — and you meet God, it will be only for a moment that you will be ecstatic. Then suddenly the mind will say, “Now what? Now this goal is achieved. Project future goals. You are finished with God, now there is no more in it.”

Desire fulfilled only for a moment gives you a relief, and that relief has also to be understood. In the moment of a fulfilled desire there is relief. There is relief because in that small moment you are desireless. Desirelessness is joy. When one desire is fulfilled and before the mind projects another desire, between the two there is a small interval when there is no desire. That moment is of meditation.

That’s how meditation has been discovered. It has not been speculated upon, it is not given by philosophers, by great thinkers. It is a simple observation, a scientific observation, that whenever desire is not there…. You wanted a beautiful house and you have got it. When you open the door of the new house, for a moment you are transported into another world, for a moment there is no desire. A long, long-cherished desire has been fulfilled. It will take a little time for the mind….

Mind needs time, remember. Mind cannot function without time; hence mind creates time. without time there is no space for the mind to function. Mind will take a little time. In fact, mind is shocked. It was not hoping that the desire was going to be fulfilled. The goal was so far away, the house was so big, and it was almost impossible, but now that it is fulfilled mind is in shock. The mind is collecting itself again while you are opening the door of the new house, and you enter in the new house and a deep joy arises in you. You say, “Aha!” The time that passes while you say “Aha!” is enough, and mind has projected another desire.

The mind says, “The house is beautiful, but where is the swimming pool? The house is beautiful, but the garden is not looked after.” You will have to create a new garden, a beautiful swimming pool, and again the whole process sets in, again you are in the wheel of the mind. But for a moment when there was no desire, there was joy. Joy is always when there is no desire. whenever there is desire, joy disappears. Desire keeps you a prisoner.

“Me” versus the Mob


If our evolution is interconnected and humanity is one body, why do you stress individuality more than universality?

Yes, we are part of each other. Not only is humanity one, existence is one. This oneness can be felt on two levels: one is in deep unconsciousness and another is in superconsciousness. Either you have to become a tree; then you are one with the whole. Or you have to become a Buddha; then you are one with the whole. Between the two you cannot be one with the whole. Consciousness is individual, unconsciousness is universal; superconscious is universal, consciousness is individual....

Why do people feel so happy in a crowd? Why does happiness in a crowd become so infectious? Because in a crowd they fall down, they become unconscious. They lose their individuality, they merge their individuality. By dropping their consciousness they drop their individuality. Then they are happy, then there is no worry, then there is no responsibility....

That’s why I say don’t become a member of a group. Otherwise you will be as low as the lowest member. Become individuals. In a group you will always fall to the lowest denominator. It is natural, it is very scientific. If you are walking with a group of one hundred people, the slowest person will decide the speed. Because the slowest person cannot move faster, he has his limitations. And if the group has to remain a group, the group has to move with the slowest. The faster person can slow down, but the slower person cannot become fast; he has his limitations.

The group is always ruled by the stupid person. The stupid cannot become intelligent, but the intelligent can relapse easily and become stupid. And of course, stupid people tend to make groups because alone they cannot rely on themselves. They are afraid, they don’t have any intelligence. They know that alone they will be lost. They tend to make groups, crowds. So whenever a church exists, whenever a sect exists, ninety-nine percent of it consists of fools. It has to be so. They decide policies of religion, politics and everything.

Beware of this mobocracy and be alert. Because in you also there are moments, stupid moments, when you would like to relax. Then you are not responsible, then there is no worry. Then you can always throw the responsibility on the group. You can always say, “What can I do? I am walking with the group, and the group is slow, so I am slow. The lowest member is deciding everything.”

If you really want to grow, be alone. If you really want to be free, be responsible. Hence I insist on individuality.

Living Without Fear


I feel an armor around me that keeps me from coming closer to people. I don’t know where it is coming from. How to have it melt away?

Everybody has that kind of armor.

There are reasons for it. First, the child is born so utterly helpless into a world he knows nothing of. Naturally he is afraid of the unknown that faces him. He has not yet forgotten those nine months of absolute security, safety, when there was no problem, no responsibility, no worry about tomorrow.

To us those are nine months but to the child it is eternity. He knows nothing of the calendar; he knows nothing of minutes, hours, days, months. He has lived an eternity in absolute safety and security, without any responsibility, and then suddenly he is thrown into a world unknown, where he is dependent for everything on others. It is natural that he will feel afraid. Everybody is bigger and more powerful, and he cannot live without the help of others. He knows he is dependent; he has lost his independence, his freedom. Small incidents may give him some taste of the reality he is going to face in the future.

Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by Nelson, but in fact the credit should not go to Nelson. Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by a small incident in his childhood. Now history does not look at things in this way, but to me it is absolutely clear.

When he was just six months old, a wild cat jumped on him. The maidservant who was looking after him had gone for something in the house; he was in the garden in the early morning sun and the fresh air, lying down, and the wild cat jumped on him. It didn’t harm him — perhaps it was just being playful — but to the child’s mind it was almost death. Since then, he was not afraid of tigers or lions; he could have fought a lion without any arms, with no fear. But a cat? That was a different affair. He was absolutely helpless. Seeing a cat he was almost frozen; he became again a six-month-old small child, with no defense, with no capacities to fight. In those small child’s eyes that cat must have looked very big; it was a wild cat. The cat may have looked into the eyes of the child.

Something in his psyche became so impressed by the incident that Nelson exploited it. Nelson was no comparison to Napoleon, and Napoleon was never defeated in his life; this was his first and last defeat. He would not have been defeated, but Nelson had brought seventy cats at the front of the army.

The moment Napoleon saw those seventy wild cats his mind stopped functioning. His generals could not understand what had happened. He was no longer the same great warrior; he was almost frozen with fear, trembling. He had never allowed any of his generals to arrange the army, but today he said, with tears in his eyes, “I am incapable of thinking — you organize the army. I will be here but I am incapable of fighting. Something has gone wrong for me.”

He was removed, but without Napoleon his army was not capable of fighting Nelson, and seeing the situation of Napoleon, everybody in his army became a little afraid: something very strange was happening.

A child is weak, vulnerable, insecure. Autonomously he starts creating an armor, a protection, in different ways. For example, he has to sleep alone. It is dark and he is afraid, but he has his teddy bear, and he believes that he is not alone; his friend is with him. You will see children dragging their teddy bears at airports, at railway stations. Do you think it is just a toy? To you it is, but to the child it is a friend. And a friend when nobody else is helpful — in the darkness of the night, alone in the bed, still he is with him. He will create psychological teddy bears.

It is to be reminded to you that although a grown-up man may think that he has no teddy bears, he is wrong. What is his God? Just a teddy bear. Out of his childhood fear, man has created a father figure who knows all, who is all-powerful, who is everywhere present; if you have enough faith in him he will protect you. But the very idea of protection, the very idea that a protector is needed, is childish. Then you learn prayer; these are just parts of your psychological armor. Prayer is to remind God that you are here, alone in the night.

In my childhood I was always wondering.... I loved the river, which was just close by, just a two-minutes’ walk from my house. Hundreds of people used to take a bath there and I was always wondering.... In summer when they take a dip in the river they don’t repeat the name of God He will create psychological teddy bears “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama” He will create psychological teddy bears no. But in the cold winter they repeat, “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.” They take a quick dip, repeating, “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.”

I was wondering, does the season make a difference? I used to ask my parents, “If these are devotees of ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Rama,’ then summer is as good as winter.”

But I don’t think that it is God or prayer or religion; it is simply the cold! They are creating an armor with “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.” They are diverting their minds. It is too cold, and a diversion is needed — and it helps. In summer there is no need; they simply forget all about what they have been doing the whole winter.

Our prayers, our chantings, our mantras, our scriptures, our gods, our priests, are all part of our psychological armor. It is very subtle. A Christian believes that he will be saved — nobody else. Now that is his defense arrangement. Everybody is going to fall into hell except him, because he is a Christian. But every religion believes in the same way that only they will be saved.

It is not a question of religion. It is a question of fear and being saved from fear, so it is natural in a way. But at a certain point of your maturity, intelligence demands that it should be dropped. It was good when you were a child, but one day you have to leave your teddy bear, just the same as one day you have to leave your God, just the same as one day you have to leave your Christianity, your Hinduism. Finally, the day you drop all your armor means you have dropped living out of fear.

And what kind of living can be out of fear? Once the armor is dropped you can live out of love, you can live in a mature way. The fully matured man has no fear, no defense; he is psychologically completely open and vulnerable.

At one point the armor may be a necessity...perhaps it is. But as you grow, if you are not only growing old but also growing up, growing in maturity, then you will start seeing what you are carrying with you. Why do you believe in God? One day you have to see for yourself that you have not seen God, you haven’t had any contact with God, and to believe in God is to live a lie: you are not being sincere.

What kind of religion can there be when there is no sincerity, no authenticity? You cannot even give reasons for your beliefs, and still you go on clinging to them.

Look closely and you will find fear behind them.

A mature person should disconnect himself from anything that is connected with fear. That’s how maturity comes.

Just watch all your acts, all your beliefs, and find out whether they are based in reality, in experience, or based in fear. And anything based in fear has to be dropped immediately, without a second thought. It is your armor. I cannot melt it. I can simply show you how you can drop it.

We go on living out of fear — that’s why we go on poisoning every other experience. We love somebody, but out of fear: it spoils, it poisons. We seek truth, but if the search is out of fear then you are not going to find it.

Whatever you do, remember one thing: Out of fear you are not going to grow. You will only shrink and die. Fear is in the service of death.

Mahavira is right: he makes fearlessness a fundamental of a fearless person. And I can understand what he means by fearlessness. He means dropping all armor. A fearless person has everything that life wants to give to you as a gift. Now there is no barrier. You will be showered with gifts, and whatever you do you will have a strength, a power, a certainty, a tremendous feeling of authority.

A man living out of fear is always trembling inside. He is continuously on the point of going insane, because life is big, and if you are continuously in fear.... And there is every kind of fear. You can make a big list, and you will be surprised how many fears are there — and you are still alive! There are infections all around, diseases, dangers, kidnapping, terrorists...and such a small life. And finally there is death, which you cannot avoid. Your whole life will become dark.

Drop the fear! The fear was taken up by you in your childhood unconsciously; now consciously drop it and be mature. And then life can be a light which goes on deepening as you go on growing.

Love is a dangerous path and only those who have courage can travel it. And I say to you it is the same, just like meditation — only for those who are courageous. And there are only two ways to reach the divine: either meditation or love. Find out which is your way, which can be your destiny.

 

THE DISEASE OF DOING
     
 
“First, the nature of activity and the hidden currents in it have to be understood, otherwise no relaxation is possible. Even if you want to relax, it will be impossible if you have not observed, watched, realized, the nature of your activity, because activity is not a simple phenomenon.
“Many people would like to relax, but they cannot relax. Relaxation is like a flowering: you cannot force it. You have to understand the whole phenomenon — why you are so active, why so much occupation with activity, why you are obsessed with it.
“Remember two words: one is action, another is activity. Action is not activity; activity is not action. Their natures are diametrically opposite. Action is when the situation demands it, you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn’t matter, it is not a response; you are so restless within that the situation is just an excuse to be active.
“Action comes out of a silent mind — it is the most beautiful thing in the world. Activity comes out of a restless mind — it is the ugliest. Act more, and let activities drop on their own accord. A transformation will come to you by and by. It takes time, it needs seasoning, but there is no hurry also.
“Now you can understand what relaxation means. It means no urge to activity in you. Relaxation doesn’t mean lying down like a dead man; and you cannot lie down like a dead man; you can pretend only. How can you lie down like a dead man? You are alive; you can only pretend. Relaxation comes to you when there is no urge to activity; the energy is at home, not moving anywhere. If a certain situation arises you will act, that’s all, but you are not finding some excuse to act. You are at ease with yourself. Relaxation is to be at home.
“Relaxation is not only of the body, it is not only of the mind, it is of your total being.
“You are too much in activity; of course tired, dissipated, dried up, frozen. The life-energy doesn’t move. There are only blocks and blocks and blocks. And whenever you do something you do it in a madness. Of course the need to relax arises. That’s why so many books are written every month about relaxation, and I have never seen a person who has become relaxed through reading a book about relaxation! He has become more hectic because now his whole life of activity remains untouched. His obsession to be active is there, the disease is there, and he pretends to be in a relaxed state so he lies down. All turmoil within, a volcano ready to erupt, and he is relaxing, following the instructions from a book: how to relax.
“There is no book that can help you to relax — unless you read your own inner being, and then relaxation is not a must. Relaxation is an absence, an absence of activity, not of action.
“Don’t do anything! No yoga posture is needed, no distortions and contortions of the body are needed. “Do nought!”; only absence of activity is needed. And how will it come? It will come by understanding.
“Understanding is the only discipline. Understand your activities and suddenly, in the middle of the activity, if you become aware, it will stop. If you become aware why you are doing it, it will stop. And that stopping is what Tilopa means.
“Relaxation means this moment is more than enough, more than can be asked and expected. Nothing to ask, it is more than enough, than you can desire. Then the energy never moves anywhere. It becomes a placid pool. In your own energy, you dissolve. This moment is relaxation. Relaxation is neither of the body nor of the mind, relaxation is of the total. That’s why buddhas go on saying, ‘Become desireless,’ because they know that if there is desire, you cannot relax.
“Relaxation is not a posture; relaxation is a total transformation of your energy.”

Awareness and Acceptance Meditation

Step 1: Daily Watching
“Start being aware with day-to-day, routine actions, and while you are doing your routine actions, remain relaxed.

“There is no need to be tense. When you are washing your floor, what is the need to be tense? Or when you are cooking the food, what is the need to be tense? There is not a single time in life that requires your tension. It is just your unawareness and your impatience.

“I have not found anything — and I have lived in all kind of ways, with all kinds of people. I have always been puzzled: why are they tense? It seems tension has nothing to do with anything outside you, it has something to do within you. Outside you always find an excuse only because it looks so idiotic to be tense without any reason. Just to rationalize, you find some reason outside yourself to explain why you are tense.

“But tension is not outside you, it is in your wrong style of life.

Step 2: Accept yourself
“You are living in competition — that will create tension. You are living in continuous comparison — which will create tension. You are always thinking either of the past or of the future, and missing the present that is the only reality — that will create tension.

“Just find your own talent. Nature never sends any single individual without some unique gift. Just a little search…. Whatever qualities and whatever talents you have, use them to the fullest, and the energy that is involved in tensions will start becoming your grace, your beauty.

Step 3: Be an Artist of Love
“Whatever you are doing, do it with such love, with such care that the smallest thing in the world becomes a piece of art. It will bring great joy to you. And it will create a world without competition, without comparison; it will give dignity to all people. It will restore their pride, which religions have destroyed.

“Any act done with totality becomes your prayer.”

 

 

Meditate on the sky; a summer sky with no clouds, endlessly empty and clear, nothing moving in it, in its total virginity. Contemplate on it, meditate on it, and enter this clarity. Become this clarity, this space-like clarity.

If you meditate on open unclouded sky, suddenly you will feel that the mind is disappearing, the mind is dropping away. There will be gaps. Suddenly you will become aware that it is as if the clear sky has entered in you also. There will be intervals. For a time being, thoughts will cease – as if the traffic has ceased and there is no one moving.

In the beginning it will be only for moments, but even those moments are transforming. By and by the mind will slow down, bigger gaps will appear. For minutes together there will be no thought, no cloud. And when there IS no thought, no cloud, the outer sky and the inner become one, because only the thought is the barrier, only the thought creates the wall; only because of the thought the outer is outer and the inner is inner.

When the thought is not there, the outer and the inner lose their boundaries, they become one. Really, boundaries never existed there. They appeared only because of the thought, the barrier. To meditate on the sky is beautiful. Just lie down so you forget the earth; just lie down on your back on any lonely beach, on any ground, and just look at the sky.

But a clear sky will be helpful – unclouded, endless. And just looking, staring at the sky, feel the clarity of it – the uncloudedness, the boundless expanse – and then enter that clarity, become one with it. Feel as if you have become the sky, the space.In the beginning, if you only meditate on the open sky, not doing anything else, intervals will start appearing, because whatsoever you see enters you. Whatsoever you see stirs you within; whatsoever you see is pictured, reflected.

You see a building. You cannot simply see it; something immediately starts happening within you. You see a man, a woman; you see a car – you see anything. It is not just outside, something has started within, the reflection, and you have started reacting to it. So everything you see moulds you, makes you, modifies you, creates you. The without is constantly related with the within. To look into the open sky is good.

Just the expanse is beautiful, with no boundaries there. Your own boundaries will disappear, because the no-boundary sky will reflect within you. And if you can stare without blinking your eyes it will be good. If you stare without blinking your eyes... because if you blink your eyes your thought-process will continue. Stare without blinking the eyes.

Stare in the emptiness, move into that emptiness, feel that you have become one with it, and any moment the sky will enter within you. First you enter into the sky and then the sky enters you. And there is a meeting: the inner sky meeting the outer sky. In that meeting is realization. In that meeting there is no mind, because the meeting can happen only when the mind is not there. In that meeting you are for the first time not your mind. There is no confusion.

Confusion cannot exist without the mind. There is no misery, because misery also cannot exist without the mind. Have you observed this fact anytime or not – that misery cannot exist without your mind? You cannot be miserable without your mind. The very source is not there. Who will supply you with this misery?

Who will make you miserable? And the same is true from the opposite direction also: you cannot be miserable without your mind and you cannot be blissful with your mind. The mind can never be the source of bliss. So if the inner and outer sky meet and mind disappears, even for a moment, you will be filled with a new life. The quality of that life is absolutely different.

It is life eternal, uncontaminated by death, uncontaminated by any fear. In that meeting you will be here and now, in the present – because past belongs to thoughts, future belongs to thoughts. Past and future are part of your mind. Present is Existence – it is not part of your mind

Golden light meditation

"This is the whole teaching of The secret of the golden flower of Master Lu-tsu. He's trying to make the path clear to you: how the circle can be complete, how the light can circulate, how you can move inwards, how you can also have a little bit of sky, a little bit of heaven. And then you can be happy anywhere - even in hell you will be happy."

You simply lie down, as you are in lying down in your bed, on your back. Keep your eyes closed. When you breathe in, just visualize great light entering from your head into your body, as if a sun has risen just close to your head - golden light pouring into your head. You are just hollow and the golden light is pouring into your head, and going, going, going, deep, deep, and going out through your toes. When you breathe in, do it with this visualization.

And when you breathe out, visualize another thing: darkness entering through your toes, a great dark river entering through your toes, coming up, and going out through the head. Do slow, deep breathing so you can visualize. Go very slowly. And just out of sleep you can have very deep and slow breaths because the body is rested, relaxed.

Let me repeat: breathing in, let golden light come into you through your head, because it is there that the Golden Flower is waiting. That golden light will help. It will cleanse your whole body and will make it absolutely full of creativity. This is male energy.

Then when you exhale, let darkness, the darkest you can conceive, like a dark night, river-like, come from your toes upward - this is feminine energy: it will soothe you, it will make you receptive, it will calm you, it will give you rest - and let it go out of the head. Then inhale again, and golden light enters in.

Do it for twenty minutes early in the morning. The best time to begin is in the early morning, immediately, just when you are half-asleep, half-awake. And the process is so simple. It needs no posture, no yogasana, no bath is needed, nothing. And then the second best time is when you are going back to sleep, in the night.

Lie down on the bed, relax for a few minutes. When you start feeling that now you are wavering between sleep and waking, just in that middle, start the process again, and continue for twenty minutes. If you fall asleep doing it, that is the best, because the impact will remain in the subconscious and will go on working.

After a three-month period you will be surprised: the energy that was constantly gathering at the muladhar, at the lowest, the sex center, is in no more gathering there. It is going upwards.

Source: " The Secret of Secrets " - Osho

a: Four Levels of Relaxing

Step 1: The Body
Osho - “Remember as many times as possible to look into the body and see whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere – the neck, the head or the legs…. Relax it consciously. Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly ‘Relax!’

You will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you – it is your body! With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head, searching for any place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax, and tell it, ‘There is nothing to fear. Don't be afraid. I am here to take care; you can relax.’ Slowly slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body becomes relaxed.”

Step 2: The Mind
Osho - “Then take another step, a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, the mind also listens. But you cannot start with the mind, you have to start from the beginning. You cannot start from the middle. Many people start with the mind and they fail; they fail because they start from a wrong place. Everything should be done in the right order.

If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. The mind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even the mind can listen to you. It will take a little longer with the mind, but it happens.”

Step 3: The Heart
Osho - “When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions, which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too.”

Step 4: Being
“Then only, when you have gone through these three steps, can you take the fourth. Now you can go to the innermost core of your being, which is beyond body, mind and heart: the very center of your existence.

You will be able to relax it, too, and that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy and acceptance. You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it.”

 

 

If you want a shower of love in your life, renounce this conflict with sex. Accept sex with joy. Acknowledge its sacredness. Receive it gratefully and embrace it more and more deeply. You will be surprised that sex can reveal such sacredness; it will reveal its sacredness to the degree of your acceptance….
My conjecture is that man had his first luminous glimpse of samadhi during the experience of intercourse. Only in the moments of coitus did man realize that it was possible to feel such profound love, to experience such illuminating bliss. And those who meditated on this truth in the right frame of mind, those who meditated on the phenomenon of sex, of intercourse, came to the conclusion that in the moments of climax the mind becomes empty of thoughts. All thoughts drain out at that moment. And this emptiness of mind, this void, this vacuum, this freezing of the mind, is the cause of the shower of divine joy….
If you want to know the elemental truth about love, the first requisite is to accept the sacredness of sex, to accept the divinity of sex in the same way you accept God's existence—with an open heart. And the more fully you accept sex with an open heart and mind, the freer you will be of it. But the more you suppress it the more you will become bound to it….
When such a harmony exists between two people I call it love. And when it exists between one man and the masses, I call it communion with God. If you can become immersed with me in such an experience, so that all barriers melt, so that an osmosis takes place at the spiritual level, then that is love. And if such a unity happens between me and everyone else and I lose my identity in the All, then that attainment, that merging, is with God, with the Almighty, with the Omniscient, with the Universal Consciousness, with the Supreme or whatsoever you want to call it. And so, I say that love is the first step and that God is the last step—the finest and the final destination.

 

The Knack of Transforming Feelings

This is a beautiful method, it will be very useful for you.
For example, if you are feeling very discontented, what to do? Patanjali [the most famous exponent of Yoga] says ponder on the opposite: if you are feeling discontented, contemplate on contentment: What is contentment?
Bring a balance. If your mind is angry, bring compassion in. Think about compassion and, immediately, the energy changes because they are the same; the opposite is the same energy. Once you bring it in, it absorbs. Anger is there: contemplate on compassion.
Do one thing: keep a statue of Buddha because that statue is the gesture of compassion. Whenever you are angry, go into the room, look at Buddha, sit Buddha-like, and feel compassion. Suddenly you will see a transformation happening within you: the anger is changing, excitement gone...compassion arising. And it is not different energy; it is the same energy — the same energy of anger — changing its quality, going higher. Try it.
It is not suppression, remember. People ask me, “Is Patanjali suppressing? Because when I am angry, if I think about compassion, will it not be a suppression?” No. It is sublimation: it is not suppression. If you are angry and you suppress anger without thinking of compassion then it is suppression. You go on pushing it down and you smile and you act as if you are not angry — and anger is bubbling there and boiling there and ready to explode. Then it is suppression. No, we are not suppressing anything, and we are not creating a smile or anything; we are just changing the inner polarity.
The opposite is the pole. When you feel hateful, think of love. When you feel desire, think of desirelessness and the silence that comes in it. Whatsoever the case, bring the opposite in and watch what happens within you. Once you know the knack of it, you have become a master. Now you have the key: any moment anger can be changed into compassion, any moment hate can be turned into love, any moment sadness can become ecstasy. Suffering can become bliss because suffering has the same energy as the bliss; the energy is not different. You just have to know how to channel it.
There is no suppression because the whole energy of anger becomes compassion — nothing is left to suppress. In fact, you have expressed it in compassion.
There are two ways of expression. In the West. now, catharsis has become very important. Encounter groups and Primal Therapy believe in catharsis. My own Dynamic Meditation is a method of catharsis because people have lost the key to sublimate. Patanjali does not talk about catharsis at all. Why doesn’t he talk about it? People had the key. the knack. They knew how to sublimate. You have forgotten, so I have to teach you catharsis.
Anger is there; it can be transformed into compassion, but you have no idea how to do it. And it is not an art which can be taught; it is a knack. You have to do it and learn it through doing it; there is no other way. It is just like swimming: you have to swim, and err, and sometimes get into danger. Sometimes you will feel lost; that your life is lost, you are drowning. You have to pass all those, and then the knack comes, then you know what it is. It is such a simple thing, swimming.
Have you observed? There are a few things you can learn but you cannot forget: swimming is one of those things. Or cycling: you can learn but you cannot forget. Everything else you can learn and you can forget. A thousand and one things you learned in your school; now you have almost forgotten all. The whole school system seems such a wastage. People learn, and then nobody remembers. Just to take the examination...then finished. Then nothing is remembered, But swimming you cannot forget. If you have not been to the river for fifty years and suddenly you are thrown in, you will swim again as fresh as ever — you will not have a single moment of hesitation about what to do. Why it happens so? Because it is a knack. It cannot be forgotten. It is not a learning; it is not an art. And learning, art, can be forgotten, but a knack? A knack is something that goes so deep into your being it becomes part of you. Sublimation is a knack.
Patanjali never talks about catharsis; I have to talk about it because of you. But once you understand, and if you can sublimate, then there is no need for catharsis because catharsis is, in a way, a wastage of energy. But, unfortunately, nothing can be done right now. And you have been suppressed for so many centuries that sublimation looks like suppression, so only catharsis seems to be the way. First you have to be relieved — you become a little weightless, unburdened — and then you can be taught the art of sublimation.
Sublimation is using the energy in a higher way, the same energy being used with a different quality to it. But you can try. Many of you have gone through Dynamic Meditation for a long time. You can try: next time when anger is there, sadness is there, just sit silently and allow the sadness to move towards happiness — just help — push it a little. Don’t do too much and don’t be in a hurry, because the sadness will be reluctant at first to go towards happiness. Because for centuries, for many lives, you have not allowed it to move that way, it will be reluctant.
It is like a horse whom you are forcing towards a new path on which he has never been, he will be reluctant. He will try to go to the old pattern. to the old path, to the old rut. But by and by persuade it, seduce it. Tell sadness then, “Don’t be afraid. It is really groovy! Come this way. You can become happiness, and there is nothing wrong in it and nothing impossible.”
Just persuade, talk to your sadness, and one day you will suddenly find the sadness has moved into a new channel: it has become happiness.

To be Nice…or Natural?

 It is better to be natural rather than controlling your anger.

Questionner: I’ll lose many friends that way... and the price that is paid for being honest is so dear.

It is not, because if you are natural maybe immediately you may feel that the price is too much; it is never! In the long run it is always beneficial to be natural. Repression may give you a false appearance of things being in control and everything going well; finally you have to pay deeply. Then it is too late and you cannot do anything. That’s what has been done to everybody, every mother has done this to every child.
You think that the control has been simple? All the psychiatrists are engaged in just washing away the things that the mothers have done. The whole psychiatric profession is just undoing things that mothers have done, nothing else, their whole business is that.
If mothers listen to me psychiatrists will die, they will starve. It is really costly. All the mad people in the madhouses are because of mothers who have been too controlling.

Questionner: I never know what’s going to come up!

Let it come up! Who knows? And why should you know beforehand? If you know beforehand it will be false. Being natural means that nobody knows. Be natural and whatsoever happens, happens.
[Your daughter] will never be against you if you are natural, because she will understand; children are very understanding. If they see that the mother and the father are natural, true — if they can depend on you, if they know that you are angry, that’s why you are angry; you are loving, because you are loving; if they know that you are true whatsoever you are.... If [your daughter can depend on knowing that when you are angry, you show it, she will understand. Children are very understanding, and she will be able to forgive you. But if she comes to know that you are angry and you are smiling, then it is impossible to forgive; you are cheating the girl.
Sometimes you are angry — you are not a super-human being yet, fortunately! You can be angry. And from where will she learn? She will have to learn from you so naturally she will practice outside. If you are angry she will go and practice on [someone else].... She has to practice somewhere. She has to learn, otherwise how will she learn? That’s the way children learn. So be angry and let her learn anger and be loving and let her learn your love and always be honest so she learns honesty too. That’s all that you can do; nothing else is needed. Just relax. If you don’t want to give the money, just say that you don’t want to give! What we do is to go on pretending: we go on pretending that we want to give but it is not good for the child.
Simply say that you are a miser and you don’t want to give these five rupees to her! Why should you? You don’t want to! You want to cling to these five rupees! Let it be a fact! What do you do? You cling to five rupees and you pretend to [your daughter] that you would love to give her not five but fifty rupees, but you cannot because it will be harmful to her: she will go and eat ice cream and this and that. This is all nonsense! Be simple: say you cannot afford five rupees, it hurts you too much. When five rupees goes out of your bag you cannot sleep the whole night! Be clear...just be simple and true and she will understand.
Never try to control and be artificial; that’s what everybody is doing, it is done everywhere. I would like my sannyasins to be different. If you can avoid [your daughter] becoming a psychiatric case, that’s enough; you have done your duty. If she never comes to need Janov and his primal scream, then it’s perfect! Otherwise if you control her too much she will become a Janovian witness!
Just be natural and be true. And I tell you it is not costly. Truth is never costly, only untruth is costly, but initially it seems that untruth is paying and truth is costly. In the long run truth always wins and untruth always is defeated.
It will be difficult for you because to be untrue is easier. You are trained for that, your mother must have trained you, so now you want to try the same with [your daughter]. Be different! At least be different from your mother.
Who are we to control anybody? What do we know about what is right and what is wrong? So at the most we can be natural and hope that everything will go well, that’s all. Natural, prayerful.

 

life is dialectical

The most fundamental thing to be remembered is that life is dialectical. It exists through duality, it is a rhythm between opposites. You cannot be happy forever, otherwise happiness will lose all meaning. You cannot be in harmony forever, otherwise you will become unaware of the harmony. Harmony has to be followed by discord again and again, and happiness has to be followed by unhappiness. Every pleasure has its own pain, and every pain has its own pleasure. Unless one understands this duality of existence, one remains in unnecessary misery. Accept the total, with all its agonies and all its ecstasies. Don’t hanker for the impossible; don’t desire that there should be only ecstasy and no agony.

Mount Sumeru is accepted by Buddhist mythology, Hindu mythology, Jaina mythology – all the three religions born in this country have accepted the story of Mount Sumeru. It will be good for you to understand what is the purpose of Mount Sumeru. The purpose is that only chakravartins – and a chakravartin is an emperor who has conquered the whole world – are allowed to sign their names on Mount Sumeru when they enter into paradise.

One great emperor died with a great desire, because there is nothing greater than signing your signature on Mount Sumeru. It was the tradition of those times that the wife of a man who died would commit sati, and the kings used to have many wives, not just one. All the wives had to commit sati – sometimes a hundred women, sometimes five hundred women. Krishna had sixteen thousand women! So it was a massacre; whenever an emperor died, hundreds of living women ....

When this emperor reached the gates of heaven with his hundreds of wives who had died with him on the funeral pyre, the gatekeeper said to him, ”You take these instruments and sign on Sumeru, but don’t take anybody else with you.”

The emperor said, ”These are all my wives, and what is the point of signing on Sumeru if there is nobody even as a witness? I want all my wives to be with me to see it.”

The gatekeeper laughed and he said, ”I have been here ... for generations we have been the gatekeepers. Before me, my father and before him, his father ... as long as existence, our family has been on this gate. And everyone on this gate has given the same advice that I’m giving to you. You will be thankful for it. If you insist, I will allow – but then don’t be offended.”

The emperor could not understand, but perhaps the gatekeeper knows more about things ... He went alone and was simply amazed at the gatekeeper’s compassion. Because he could not find a small place anywhere on Mount Sumeru to make his signature. All over there were signatures and signatures and signatures.

The meaning is clear: ”You are not the only one. Millions of emperors have passed before you.” He said to the gatekeeper, who was with him, ”This is very humiliating. I used to think I would be the only emperor who is going to sign. And this whole mountain, miles and miles ... there is no space for a signature!”

The gatekeeper said, ”Do one thing – another advice that we have been giving since my ancestors. Here is the instrument. Remove somebody’s name and put your name. And this is not new; this has been happening for centuries as far as I know, my father knew, my father’s father knew. You have to remove somebody’s name and create space for your signature.”

The emperor said, ”But that takes all the joy out of it. Somebody will come and remove my name.”

The gatekeeper said, ”That, of course, is going to happen. It is up to you.”

This is the failure of success. Ultimate success brings ultimate failure. And this story may be not a fact; the Sumeru Mountain range does not exist anywhere, but all these three religions have accepted it for the simple reason to show you: Don’t run after the ego. Your ego can take you at the most to the Sumeru Mountains; and then you will see you have wasted your whole life, just to remove somebody’s name. What is the joy of being the greatest celebrity in the world?

 

Man should be like a hollow bamboo, so that existence can pass through him. Man should be like a porous sponge — not hard — so that the doors and the windows of his being are open, and existence can pass from one end to another without any hindrance; in fact, finding no one inside. The winds blow — they come in from one window and they go out from another window of his being. This emptiness is the highest bliss possible. But you are like a hard, unporous rock, or like a hard steel rod. Nothing passes through you. You resist everything. You don’t allow. You go on fighting on all sides and in all directions as if you are in a great war with existence. There is no war going on, you are simply befooled by yourself. Nobody is there to destroy you. The whole supports you; the whole is the very earth on which you are standing, the very sky in which you breathe, you live. In fact, you are not — only the whole is. When one understands this, by and by one drops the inner hardness, there is no need for it. There is no enmity, the whole is friendly towards you. The whole cherishes you, loves you. Otherwise, why are you here? The whole brings you forth, like a tree is brought forth by the earth. The whole would like to participate in all your blessings, in all the celebrations that are possible. When you flower, the whole will flower through you; when you sing, the whole will sing through you; when you dance, the whole will dance with you. You are not separate.

 

Oneness With existence

The energy of the cosmos is surrounding you. All that is needed is a certain emptiness in you. So the emptiness is good; don’t fill it by beliefs, don’t fill it again by another kind of god, another philosophy, some existentialism. Don’t fill it. Leave it clean and fresh, and go deeper. Soon you will find from both sides, from outside and inside, a tremendous rush of energy, a tremendous rush of consciousness. Then you disappear, you are almost flooded with the cosmos. You are so small and the cosmos is so vast. You suddenly disappear into it, and that disappearance is the ultimate experience of enlightenment. Then you know you were neither an outsider, nor an insider; you are one with existence. Other than oneness with existence, nothing is going to help you. But that oneness is so easy, so obvious. Just a little relaxation, just a little turning in — not much effort, not much discipline, not much torture for yourself.

 

The Honeymoon that Never Ends
by Osho

LOVE IS NOT A RELATIONSHIP. Love relates, but it is not a relationship. A relationship is something finished. A relationship is a noun; the full stop has come, the honeymoon is over. Now there is no joy, no enthusiasm, now all is finished. You can carry it on, just to keep your promises. You can carry it on because it is comfortable, convenient, cozy. You can carry it on because there is nothing else to do. You can carry it on because if you disrupt it, it is going to create much trouble for you… Relationship means something complete, finished, closed.

Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, unending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues– it is a continuum. It is a verb, not a noun.

And why do we reduce the beauty of relating to relationship? Why are we in such a hurry? Because to relate is insecure, and relationship is a security. Relationship has a certainty; relating is just a meeting of two strangers, maybe just an overnight stay and in the morning we say goodbye. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow? And we are so afraid that we want to make it certain, we want to make it predictable. We would like tomorrow to be according to our ideas; we don't allow it freedom to have its own say. So we immediately reduce every verb to a noun.

You are in love with a woman or a man and immediately you start thinking of getting married. Make it a legal contract. Why? How does the law come into love? The law comes into love because love is not there. It is only a fantasy, and you know the fantasy will disappear. Before it disappears settle down, before it disappears do something so it becomes impossible to separate.

In a better world, with more meditative people, with a little more enlightenment spread over the earth, people will love, love immensely, but their love will remain a relating not a relationship. And I am not saying that their love will be only momentary. There is every possibility their love may go deeper than your love, may have a higher quality of intimacy, may have something more of poetry and more of godliness in it. And there is every possibility their love may last longer than your so-called relationship ever lasts. But it will not be guaranteed by the law, by the court, by the policeman. The guarantee will be inner. It will be a commitment from the heart, it will be a silent communion.

If you enjoy being with somebody, you would like to enjoy it more and more. If you enjoy the intimacy, you would like to explore the intimacy more and more. And there are a few flowers of love which bloom only after long intimacies. There are seasonal flowers too; within six weeks they are there, in the sun, but within six weeks again they are gone forever. There are flowers that take years to come, and there are flowers that take many years to come. The longer it takes, the deeper it goes. But it has to be a commitment from one heart to another heart. It has not even to be verbalized, because to verbalize it is to profane it. It has to be a silent commitment; eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being. It has to be understood, not said.

Forget relationships and learn how to relate.

Once you are in a relationship you start taking each other for granted– that's what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either! It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery. And to take the other for granted is insulting, disrespectful.

To think that you know your wife is very, very ungrateful. How can you know the woman? How can you know the man? They are processes, they are not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. So much water has gone down the Ganges; she is somebody else, totally different. Relate again, start again, don't take it for granted.

And the man that you slept with last night, look at his face again in the morning. He is no more the same person, so much has changed. So much, incalculably much has changed. That is the difference between a thing and a person. The furniture in the room is the same, but the man and the woman, they are no more the same. Explore again, start again. That's what I mean by relating.

Relating means you are always starting, you are continuously trying to become acquainted. Again and again, you are introducing yourself to each other. You are trying to see the many facets of the other's personality. You are trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into his realm of inner feelings, into the deep recesses of his being. You are trying to unravel a mystery which cannot be unraveled. That is the joy of love: the exploration of consciousness.

And if you relate, and don't reduce it to a relationship, then the other will become a mirror to you. Exploring him, unawares you will be exploring yourself too. Getting deeper into the other, knowing his feelings, his thoughts, his deeper stirrings, you will be knowing your own deeper stirrings too. Lovers become mirrors to each other, and then love becomes a meditation. Relationship is ugly, relating is beautiful.

Hence I say relate. By saying relate, I mean remain continuously on a honeymoon. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable, that it is not possible that you can ever say, "I have known her," or, "I have known him." At the most you can say, "I have tried my best, but the mystery remains a mystery."

In fact the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure.