Chapter 4
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Returning to the Source30 October 1969 am iation Camp at Dwarka, Gurujat, India
Question 1
A FRIEND HAS ASKED: ACC TO WHAT YOU HAVE SAID, ONE TRIUMPH OVER DEATH THROUGH MEDITATION OR SADHANA.
BUT THEN, DOESNT THE SAME STATE EXIST WHEN WE ARE IN SLEEP? AND IF IT DOES, THEN WHY T DEATH BE QUERED THROUGH SLEEP?
The first thing that o be uood is that triumph over death does not mean there is something like death to quer.
To triumph over death simply means you will e to know there is h.
To know that death is not is to quer it.
There is nothing like death to be quered.
As soon as one knows there is h, oing and losing battle with death ceases.
Some enemies exist, and there are others that iy do but only seem to exist.
Death is one of those enemies with no real existe only seems to exist.
And so, do not take the triumph to mean that somewhere death exists and that we shall quer it.
This would be like a man going crazy fighting with his shadow, until someone points out to him, "Look closely, the shadow has no substance.
It is merely an appearance.
" If the man looked at the shadow and realized what he was doing, he would laugh at himself; only then could he know he has quered the shadow.
quering the shadow simply means there was not evei shadow to be fought with; aempting to do so would go crazy.
One who fights with death will lose; one who knows death will triumph over it.
This also means that if death is not, then iy we never ever die -- whether we are aware of it or not.
The world does not sist of those people who die and those who do not die -- no, its not like that.
In this world no one ever dies.
There are two kinds of people, however: those who know this as a fact, and those who dont -- this is the only difference.
In sleep we reach the same place we do iation.
The only difference is that in sleep we are unscious, while iation we are fully scious.
If someoo bee fully aware, even in his sleep, he would have the same experience as iation.
For example, if we were to put a person under ahetid in his unscious state bring him on a stretcher to a garden where flowers are in full bloom, where fragrance is in the air, where the sun is shining and the birds are singing, the man would be pletely unaware of all this.
After we brought him bad he was out of the ahesia, if we asked him how he liked the garden, he would not be able to tell us anything.
Then, if you were to take him to the same garden when he was fully scious, he would experience everything present there when he had been brought in before.
In both cases, although the man was brought to the same place, he was unaware of the beautiful surroundings in the first instance, while in the sed instance he would be fully aware of the flowers, the fragrahe song of the birds, the rising sun.
So although you will undoubtedly reach as far in an unscious state as you will rea a scious state, to reae pla an unscious state is as good as not reag there at all.
In sleep we reach the same paradise we rea meditation, but we are unaware of it.
Eaight we travel to this paradise, and then we e back -- unaware.
Although the fresh breeze and the lovely fragrance of the place touch us, and the songs of the birds ring in our ears, we are never aware of it.
A, in spite of returning from this paradise totally unaware of it, one might say, "I feel very good this m.
I feel very peaceful.
I slept well last night.
"
What do you feel so good about? Having slept well, what good happened? It ot be only because you slept -- surely you must have been somewhere; something must have happeo you.
But in the m you have no knowledge of it, except for a vague idea of feeling good.
One who has had a deep sleep at night gets up refreshed in the m.
This shows the person has reached a rejuvenating sour sleep -- but in an unscious state.
One who is uo sleep well at night finds himself more tired in the m than he was the previous evening.
And if a person does not sleep well for a few days it bees difficult for him to survive, because his e with the source of life is broken.
He is uo reach the place it is essential he should.
The worst punishment in the world is not death -- as a punishmeh is easy; it occurs in a few moments.
The worst punishment ever devised oh is not letting a person go to sleep.
Even to this day, there are tries like a and Russia where prisoners are made to go without sleep.
The torture a prisoes through, if he is not allowed to sleep for fifteen days, is beyond our imagination -- he almost goes mad.
He begins to divulge all the informatioherwise would not have let the enemy know.
He begins to blabber, totally unaware of its implications.
In a, systematic methods have been devised.
For six months prisoners are not allowed to sleep.
sequently, they bee totally insane.
They pletely fet who they are, what their names are, what their religion is, which town or city they e from, what their try is -- they fet everything.
Lack of sleep throws their sciousness into plete disorder, into chaos.
In that dition they be made to learn anything.
When the Ameri soldiers captured in Korea returned from the prison camps of Russia and a, denial of sleep had left them in such terrible shape that when they came out they were openly antagonistierid in favor of unism.
First these soldiers were not allowed to sleep, and when their sciousnesses became disordered, they were indoated into unism.
Oheir identities were thrown into chaos, through repeated suggestions they were told they were unists.
So before their release they were pletely brainwashed.
Looking at these soldiers, Ameri psychologists were dumbfounded.
If a person is denied sleep, he bees cut off from the very source of life.
Atheism will tio grow in the world in the same ratio as sleep tio get lighter.
In tries where people have lighter sleep, atheism will be more on the increase there.
And in tries where people have deeper sleep, the more theism will be on the increase.
But this theism and atheism are a totally strahing for man, because they grow out of an unscious state.
A person who has a deep sleep spends the day in peace, while the one who does not have a deep sleep remailess and troubled the following day.
How in the world a restless and troubled mind be receptive to God? A mind which is disturbed, dissatisfied, tense and angry, refuses to accept God, denies his existence.
Sce is not at the bottom of the increasing atheism in the West; the disorderly, chaotidition of sleep is at the root of it.
In New York, at least thirty pert of the people ot sleep without tranquilizers.
Psychologists believe that if this dition prevails for the hundred years, not a single person will be able to sleep without medication.
People have pletely lost sleep.
If a man who has lost sleep were to ask you how you go to sleep, and your answer were, "All I do is put my head on the pillow and fall asleep," he will not believe you.
He will find this impossible and suspect there must be some trick he doesnt know to it -- because he lays his head on the pillow too, and nothing happens.
God forbid, but a time may e, after a thousand or two thousand years, when everyone will have lost natural sleep, and people will refuse to believe that a thousand or two thousand years before their time, people simply rested their heads on their pillows and fell asleep.
They will take this as fi, a mythical story from the Puranas.
They will not believe it to be true.
They will say, "This is not possible, because if that isnt true about us, how it be true about anyone else?"
I am drawing your attention to all of this because three or four thousand years ago people would close their eyes and go into meditation as easily as you go to sleep today.
Two thousand years from now it will be difficult to sleep in New York -- it is difficult even today.
It is being difficult to sleep in Bombay, and soon it will bee difficult in Dwarka as well -- it is just a matter of time.
Today it is hard to believe there was a time when a man could close his eyes and go into meditation -- because now, when you sit with your eyes closed, you reaowhere; ihoughts keep h around and you remain where you are.
In the past, meditation was as easy for those who were close to nature as sleep is for those who live close to nature.
First meditation disappeared; now sleep is on its way out.
Those things are first lost which are scious; after that, those things are lost which are unscious.
With the disappearaneditation the world has almost bee irreligious, and when sleep disappears the world will bee totally irreligious.
There is no hope fion in a sleepless world.
You will not believe how closely, how deeply, we are ected to sleep.
Hoerson will live his life depends totally on how he sleeps.
If he does not sleep well, his entire life will be a chaos: all his relationships will bee entangled, everything will bee poisonous, filled with rage.
If, on the trary, a person sleeps deeply, there will be freshness in his life -- pead joy will tinuously flow in his life.
Underlying his relationships, his love, everything else, there will be serenity.
But if he loses sleep, all his relationships will go haywire.
He will have a messed-up life with his family, his wife, his son, his mother, his father, his teacher, his students -- all of them.
Sleep brings us to a point in our unscious where we are immersed in God -- although not for too long.
Even the healthiest person only reaches to his deeper level for ten minutes of his nightly eight hours sleep.
For these ten minutes he is so pletely lost, drowned in sleep, that not even a dream exists.
Sleep is not total as long as one is dreaming -- one keeps moviweeates of sleep and wakefulness.
Dreaming is a state in whie is half-asleep and half-awake.
To be in a dream means that even though your eyes are closed, you are not asleep; external influences are still affeg you.
The people you met during the day, you are still with them at night in your dreams.
Dreams occupy the middle state between sleep and wakefulness.
And there are many people who have lost sleep -- they merely remain in the dreaming state, without ever reag the state of sleep.
And that you dont remember in the m that you dreamt all night is beside the point.
Much resear sleep is being carried out in America.
Some ten big laboratories have been experimenting on thousands of people for about eight to ten years.
Ameris are showing i iation because they have lost sleep.
They think that perhaps meditation may bring their sleep back, that it may bring some peato their lives.
Thats why they look upoation as nothing more than a tranquilizer.
When Vivekananda first introduced meditation in America, a physi came to him and said, "I enjoyed your meditation immensely.
It is absolutely a non-medial tranquilizer.
Its not a medie a puts oo sleep -- its great.
" Yogis are not the reason their influence is growing so mu America -- the lack of sleep is the real cause.
Their sleep is in a mess, and sequently life in America is filled with heaviness, depression, tension.
So in America we see the growing need for tranquilizers -- somehow, t sleep to people.
Every year, millions of dollars are being spent on tranquilizers in America.
Ten big laboratories are dug resear thousands of people who are being paid to undergo nights of rather.. unfortable, painful sleep.
All kinds of electrodes and thousands of wires are attached to peoples bodies, and they are examined from all ao find out what is happening ihem.
One incredible discovery these experiments have revealed is that man dreams almost the whole night.
Waking up, some people said they didnt dream, while some said they did.
But in fact, all of them dreamt.
The only difference was that those with better memories remembered dreaming, while those with weaker memories could not recall dreaming.
It was found, however, that a pletely healthy person was able to slip into a deep, dreamless sleep for ten minutes.
Dreams be sed through maes.
Nerves in the brain remain active during our dreaming state, but as the dream stops, the nerves cease to be active as well, and the mae indicates a gap has occurred.
The gap shows that at that time the man was her dreaming nor thinking -- he was lost somewhere.
It is iing that the maes keep rec movement ihe man while he is in the dreaming state, but as soon as he falls into dreamless sleep, the mae sho.
They dont know where the man disappeared in that gap.
So dreamless sleep means the man has reached a place beyond the maes range.
It is in this gap that maers the divine.
The mae is uo detect this spa between, this gap.
The mae records the internal activity as long as the man is dreaming -- then es the gap and the man disappears somewhere.
And then, after ten mihe mae starts rec again.
It is difficult to say where the man was during that ten-mierval.
Ameri psychologists are very intrigued by this gap; hehey sider sleep the biggest mystery.
The fact is that o God, sleep is the only mystery.
There is no other mystery.
You sleep every day, yet you have no idea what sleep is.
A man sleeps all through his life, a nothing ges -- he knows nothing about sleep.
The reason you dont know anything about sleep is that when sleep is there, you are not.
Remember, you are only as long as sleep is not.
And so, you e to know only as much as the mae knows.
Just as in the face of the gap the mae stops and is uo reach where the man has been transported, you ot reach there either -- because you are no more than a mae as well.
Since you do not e across that gap either, sleep remains a mystery; it remains beyond your reach.
This is so because a man falls into wakeless sleep only when he ceases to exist in his "I-am-ness.
" And therefore, as the ego keeps growing, sleep bees less and less.
An egoistic person loses his capacity to sleep because his ego, the I, keeps asserting itself twenty-four hours a day.
It is the I that wakes up, the same I that walks oreet.
The I remains so present the ewenty-four hours that at the moment of falling asleep, wheime approaches to drop the I, one is uo get rid of it.
Obviously, it bees difficult to fall asleep.
As long as the I exists, sleep is impossible.
And, as I told you yesterday, as long as the I exists, entering into God is impossible.
Entering into sleep aering into God are exactly one and the same thing; the only difference is that through sleep oers into God in an unscious state, while through meditatioers into God in a scious state.
But this is a very big difference.
You may enter God through sleep for thousands of lives, yet you will never e to know God.
But if, even for a moment, you enter meditation you will have reached the same place you have reached in deep sleep for thousands and millions of lives -- although always in an unscious state -- and it will transform your life totally.
The iing thing is that once a persoers meditatioers that emptiness where deep sleep takes him, he never remains unscious -- even when he is asleep.
When Krishna says ia that the yogi stays awake when everyone else is asleep, he does not mean the yogi never sleeps at all.
In fao one sleeps as beautifully as a yogi does.
But even in his deepest sleep, that element in him which has entered into meditation remains awake.
And every night the yogi enters sleep in this awakeate.
Then for him meditation and sleep bee one and the same thing -<mark></mark>- no differeweewo remains.
Then he always enters sleep in full sciousness.
Once a person moves within himself through meditation, he ever be in an unscious state in his sleep.
Ananda lived with Buddha for many years.
For years he slept near Buddha.
One m he asked Buddha, "For years I have been watg you sleep.
Not once do you ever ge sides; you sleep the whole night in the same position.
Your limbs stay where they were when you lay down at night; there is not the slightest movement.
Many times I have got up at night to check whether you have moved.
I have stayed up nights watg you -- your hands, your feet, rest in the same position; you never ever ge sides.
Do you keep some kind of a record of your sleep the whole night?"
"I doo keep any record," Buddha replied.
"I sleep in a scious state, so I find o ge sides.
I if I want to.
Turning from one side to another is not a requirement of sleep, its a requirement of your restless mind.
" A restless mind ot eve in one place for a single night, let alone during the day.
Even sleeping at night, the whole time the body shows its restlessness.
If you watch a person asleep at night, you will see he is tinuously restless the whole time.
You will find him moving his hands in much the same way he does when he is awake during the day.
In his dream at night, you will find him running and panting in much the same way it happens with someone during the day -- he feels out of breath, tired.
At night, in dreams, he fights in much the same way he fights during the day.
He is as angry at night as he is during the day.
He is filled with passion during the day; at night as well.
There is no fual differeween the day and the night of such a person, except that at night he lies down exhausted, unscious; everything else tio fun as usual.
So Buddha said, "I ge sides if I want to, but there is no need.
"
But we dont realize
A man sitting in a chair keeps jiggling his legs.
Ask him: "Why are ys jiggling like that? Its uandable if they move when you walk, but why are they moving when you are sitting in a chair?" No sooner do you say this than the man will stop immediately.
Then he wont even move for a sed, but he will have no explanation as to why he was doing it.
It shows how the restlessness within causes agitation iire body.
Inside is the restless mind; it ot be still, in one position, even for a moment.
It will keep the whole body fidgeting -- the legs will move, the head will shake; even sitting, the body will ge sides.
Thats why, even for ten minutes, you find it so difficult to sit still iation.
And from a thousand different spots the body urges you to twitd turn.
We do not notice this until we sit with awareness iation.
We realize then what sort of a body this is; it doesnt want to remain still in one position even for a sed.
The fusion, the tension, and the excitement of the mind stir up the entire body.
For about ten minutes everything disappears in wakeless sleep -- although these ten minutes are available only to one who is pletely healthy and peaceful, not to everyone.
et this kind of sleep anywhere from oo five minutes; most people get only two, or one minute of deep sleep.
The little juice we receive in that one minute of reag to the source of life, ly to making our wenty-four hours work.
Whatever little amount of oil the lamp receives in that short period, we utilize it to carry on our lives for a full twenty-four hours.
The lamp of ones life burns on whatsoever amount of oil it receives then.
This is the reason the lamp burns so slow: not enough oil is collected to make the lamp of life burn brightly so it bee a flaming torch.
Meditatis you slowly to the source of life.
Then it is not that you keep taking a handful of nourishment out of it, you are simply in the source itself.
Then it is not that you refill your lamp with more oil -- theire o of oil bees available to you.
Then you begin to live in that very o.
With that kind of living, sleep disappears -- not in the sehat one doesnt sleep any more, but in the sehat even when one is asleep, someohin remains wide awake.
Then dreams exist no more.
A yogi stays awake; he sleeps, but he never dreams -- his dreams disappear totally.
And when dreams disappear, thoughts disappear.
What we know as thoughts in the wakeful state are called dreams in the sleeping state.
There is only a slight d<dfn></dfn>iffereween thoughts and dreams: thoughts are slightly more civilized dreams, while dreams are a little primitive in nature.
Of the two, one is the inal thought.
In fact, children, or the abinal tribes, think only in pictures, not in words.
Mans first thoughts are always in pictures.
For example, when a child is hungry he does not think in words, "I am hungry.
" A child visualize the mothers breast; he imagine himself sug the breast.
He be filled with the desire to go to the breast, but he ot form the words.
The word formation starts much later; pictures appear first.
When we dont knoarticular language, we use pictures to express ourselves as well.
If you happen to go to a fn try and you dont know the language, and you want to drink water, you cup your palms to your mouth and the stranger will uand that you are thirsty -- because when words are not at hand, the need for pictures arises.
And the iing thing is that languages of words are different in different places, but the language of pictures is universal -- because every mans picture language is the same.
We have ied different words, but pictures are not our iion.
Pictures are the universal language of the human mind.
A painting, therefore, is uood anywhere in the world.
There is o ge your language to uand a sculpture at Khajuraho or a painting by Leonardo.
A sculpture at Khajuraho will be as uood by a ese, a Fren and a German, as it is by you.
And if you visit the museum of the Louvre in France, you will have no difficulty in following the paintiher.
You may not uand the titles, because they are in French, but you will have no problem following the painting.
The language of pictures is everyones language.
The language of words is useful during the day, but it is not useful at night.
We again bee primitive at night.
We disappear in sleep as we are.
We lose rees, our uy educations, everything.
We are transported to a point where the inal man oood.
Thats why pictures emerge at night in sleep, and words appear during the day.
If we want to make love during the day, we think in terms of words, but at night there is no way to express love except through images.
Thoughts do not seem as alive as dreams.
In dreams the whole image appears before you.
Thats why we enjoy watg a movie based on a novel more than reading the self.
The only reason for this is that the novel is in the language of words while the movie is in the language of images.
In the same manner, you feel greater joy being here and listening to me live.
You would not feel the same joy listening to this talk on a tape, because here the image is present, on tape there are only words.
The language of images is o us, more natural.
At night words turn into pictures; thats all the differehere is.
The day dreams disappear, thoughts disappear too; the day thoughts disappear, dreams disappear as well.
If the day is empty of thoughts, the night will be empty of dreams.
And remember, dreams dont allow you to sleep, and thoughts dont allow you to awaken.
Make sure you uand both things: dreams do not let you sleep, and thoughts do not let you awaken.
If dreams disappear, sleep will be total; if thoughts disappear, awakening will be total.
If the awakening is total and the sleep is total, then not much differes betweewo.
The only difference is in keeping the eyes open or closed, and in the body being at work or at rest.
One who is totally awakened sleeps totally, but in both states his sciousness remaily the same.
sciousness is one, ungeable; only the body ges.
Awake, the body is at work; asleep, the body is at rest.
To the friend who has asked why God is not attained in sleep, my answer is: he be attained if you remain awake even in your sleep.
So my method of meditation is a sleepihod -- sleeping in awareness, entering into sleep with awareness.
Thats why I ask you to relax your body, to relax your breathing, to calm down your thoughts.
All this is a preparation for sleep.
Therefore, it often happens that some friends go to sleep duriation -- obviously; this is a preparation for sleep.
And, while preparing for it, they dont know when they go to sleep.
Thats why I repeat the third suggestion: stay awake inside, remain scious withihe body be totally relaxed, let the breathially relaxed, more relaxed than it normally is while sleeping.
But stay awake within.
Withi your awareness burn like a lamp so you dont fall asleep.
The initial ditions of meditation and sleep are the same, but there is a differen the final dition.
The first dition is that the body should be relaxed.
If you suffer from insomnia, the first thing a doctor will teach you is relaxation.
He will ask you to do the same thing I am asking: relax your body, do any ?９9ｌｉb.ension remain in your body; let your body be totally loose, just like a fluff of cotton.
Have you ever noticed how a dog or a cat sleeps? They sleep as if they are not.
Have you ever noticed a baby sleeping? There is no tension anywhere -- its arms and legs remain unbelievably loose.
Watch a youth and an old man -- you will find everything tense in them.
So the doctor would ask you to relax totally.
The same dition applies to sleep: the breathing should be relaxed, deep and slow.
You must have noticed that jogging, the breathing bees faster.
Similarly, when the body exerts itself at work, the breathing bees faster and the blood circulation increases.
For sleeping, the blood circulation should slow down -- the situation should be just the opposite to jogging -- and then the breathing will relax.
So the sed dition is: relax your breathing.
When thoughts run faster, the blood has to circulate rapidly in the brain -- and when this happens, sleep bees impossible.
The dition of sleep requires a slower flow of blood to the brain.
Thats why we use pillows -- to reduce the flow of blood to the brain.
Without a pillow, the head lies at the same level as the body, and sequently, the blood flows at the same rate from head to toe.
When the head is raised, the blood has difficulty moving upwards; its flow is reduced in the brain and moves throughout the rest of the body.
So the greater the difficulty one has in falling asleep, the more pillows he will o put under his head to raise it.
As the flow of blood is reduced, the brain relaxes and one finds it easy to fall asleep.
With fast-moving thoughts, the blood has to run faster too -- because for its movement a thought has to rely on blood as the vehicle.
The veins in the brain begin to work faster.
You must have noticed that when a person is angry his veins swell.
This is so because the veins have to make more space to let extra blood run through them.
When the head cools down, the blood pressure also decreases.
In ahe fad the eyes turn red.
This is due to the extra blood that runs through the veins.
In that state, thoughts move so fast that the blood has to flow faster.
And breathing also bees faster.
Wheakes hold of the mind, the breathing bees very heavy and the blood flows faster -- because thoughts move so rapidly, the mind begins to fun so fast, that all the veins in the brain start rushing with blood at great speed.
So the ditions for meditation are primarily the same as those applicable to sleep: relax your body, relax your breathing, let go of thoughts.
And so, for sleep as well as for meditation, the initial ditions are equally true.
The difference is in the final dition.
In the former you remain deep in sleep; iation you remain fully awake, thats all.
So this friend is right in asking the question.
There is a deep relationship between sleep aatioween samadhi and sushupti, deep sleep.
However, there is one very signifit differeweewo: the differeween a scious and an unscious state.
Sleep is unawareness, meditation is awakening.
Question 2
ANOTHER FRIEND HAS ASKED: WHAT IS THE DIFFEREWEEN WHAT YOU CALL MEDITATION, AND AUTOHYPNOSIS?
The difference is the same as that which exists between sleep aation.
This also o be uood.
Sleep is that whies naturally, while the sleep ihrough effort is self-hypnosis This is the only difference.
The word hypnos also means sleep.
Hypnosis means tandra, sleepiness.
One is the kind of sleep whies on its own, the other kind is cultivated, induced.
If someone has difficulty sleeping, then he will have to do something about it.
If a man lies down and begins to think tinuously that he is falling asleep, and should this thought enter his being and take hold of his mind, the body will begin to respond accly too.
The body will begin to relax, the breathing will begin to slow down, the mind will begin to quiet down.
If an enviro for sleep is created within the body, the body will start funing accly.
The body is not ed with facts, the body is very obedient.
If you feel hungry every day at eleven oclock, and if your clock stopped at eleven oclock the previous night, one look at the clod your stomach would say, "Time to eat" -- even though it might be o oclo the m.
It is not eleven oclock yet -- there are still three more hours before eleven -- but if the clock shows eleven oclock the stomach will plain of hunger because the stomach works meically.
If you are used to going to bed at midnight, and if by ce your clock is two hours ahead, you will begin to feel drowsy as soon as the clock strikes twelve, even though it may be only ten oclock.
The body will immediately say, "It is twelve oclock.
Time to go to bed!"
The body is very obedient.
The healthier the body, the more obedient it is.
A healthy body means an obedient body.
A sick body is one which has stopped obeying: you feel sleepy and the body refuses to sleep; you feel hungry and the body doesnt want to eat.
A body which stops obeying is an ill body, and the body which is obedient is a healthy body -- because the body follows us like a shadow.
Difficulty arises when the body stops being obedient.
So hypnosis simply means that the body has to be ordered, that it has to be made to follow ands.
Most of our illnesses are just pseudo.
Almost fifty pert of our ailments are false.
The reason behind the growing illness in the world is not that there is an increase in disease, it is because mans pretense is on the increase.
Make sure you uand this well.
With increased knowledge aer eiditions there should be a dee in the number of diseases.
But that has not happened, because mans capacity to lie has kept on growing.
Man not only lies to others, he lies to himself too.
He creates new diseases as well.
For example, if a man has suffered heavily in business and is on the verge of bankruptcy, he may not want to accept that he is bankrupt and so he is afraid to go into the marketplace; he knows he will have to face his creditors.
All of a sudden he finds he has been overpowered by an illhat has made him bedridden.
This is an illness created by his mind.
It has a double advantage.
Now he tell others his illness prevents him from attending to his business -- he has already vinced himself about this and now he vihers as well -- and now this illness is incurable.
In the first place, it is not an illness at all, and the more treatment he is given, the sicker he will bee.
If medie fails to cure you, know well your illness is not curable through medication -- the cause of the illness lies somewhere else; it has nothing to do with medication.
You may curse the medie and call the doctors stupid for not finding the right treatment for you; you may try ayurvedic medie or naturopathic treatment; you may turn to allopathy or homeopathy -- nothing will work.
No doctor be of any use to you, simply because a doctor only treat an authentic illness -- he has no trol over something pseudo.
And the iing thing is that you keep busy creating illnesses like that, and you want them to remain.
More than fifty pert of female siesses are false.
Women have learned a formula from childhood: they get love only when they are sick, otherwise not.
Whehe wife is ill, the husband takes time off work, pulls up a chair and sits by her bedside.
He may curse himself for doing so, but he does it.
So whenever a woman wants attention from her man, she promptly falls ill.
Thats why we find women sick almost all the time.
They know that by being ill they hold sway over the entire household.
An ill person bees a dictator, a tyrant.
If the person says, "Turn off the radio!" it is immediately turned off.
If the person says, "Put off the lights and go to sleep," or "Everyoays home; no one is to go out," the members of the household do as he says.
The more there is a dictatorial tenden a person, the more he will get sick -- because who wants to hurt the feelings of someone ill? But this is dangerous.
This way, we actually tribute to his siess.
It is good if a husband sits beside his wife when she is well; it is uandable.
But absolutely he should not stop going to the office when she is sid thus tribute to her siess.
It is too costly a bargain.
A mother should not pay too much attention when her child gets sick; otherwise, whehe child wants attention, he will fall ill.
When a child gets ill, be less worried about him so that no associatioween illness and love bees established in his mind.
The child should not get the impression that whenever he is ill the mother will pat his head and tell him stories.
Instead, the mother should pamper the child when he is happy, so that love bees associated with joy and happiness.
We have associated love with misery, and that is very dangerous because it means that whenever one needs love, he will invite misery so love follow.
And so whosoever longs for love will fall sick, because he knows siess brings love.
But love is o be found through siess.
Remember, illness brings pity, not love, and to be an object of pity is insulting, very degrading.
Love is a totally different thing.
But we have no awareness of love.
What I am saying is that the body follows gestions -- if we want to be ill, the poor body gets ill.
Hypnosis is useful in g such illnesses.
What this means is that for a fake illness, fake medie will work -- not real medie.
If we make ourselves believe we are ill, we also make ourselves believe we are not ill and rid ourselves of the illness.
To this end, hypnosis is of great value.
Today, there is hardly a hospital in a developed try without a hypnotist on its staff.
In the West, the physi is apanied by the hypnotist, because there are a number of illnesses for which a doctor is totally useless, for whily a hypnotist is of use.
He puts the patient under hypnosis and then gives suggestions that he is feeling well.
Do you know that only three pert of all snakes are poisonous? But generally, a man dies even from the bite of a non-poisonous snake if he believes a se kill a man.
This is the reason why mantras and exorcism are also able to work on a se.
Mantra ting and exorcism are in other words pseudo-teiques.
A man is bitten by a poisonous snake.
All that is needed now is to vince him that the poison of the snake has been nullified.
This will be enough: the poison will not now have any effect.
It is as though the poison was here.
And if he were to be fully vihat a snake had actually bitten him, he would die.
He would die not because of the se, but because of the belief that a snake had bitten him.
I have heard
O happehat a man stayed ht in an inn.
He ate di night a early the m.
A year later he returo the same inn.
The innkeeper was shocked to see him.
"Are you all right?" he asked the traveler.
"I am all right.
Why, whats the matter?"
"We were quite frightened," said the innkeeper.
"You see, the last night you stayed here, a snake fell into the pot and was cooked with the food served to you.
Four other people who ate the food died soon after.
We couldnt figure out what happeo you because you left quite early.
We were so worried about you.
"
Wheraveler heard this, he said, "What? A snake in my food?" and dropped dead.
A year later! He died of fear.
For such ailments, hypnosis is very useful.
Hypnosis only means that the falsehood we have created around ourselves be ralized by another falsehood.
Remember, if an imaginary thorn has pricked your foot, dont try to remove it with the help of a real thorn; it would be dangerous.
First of all, the imaginary one will never be removed, and furthermore, the real one will hurt your foot.
A false thorn has to be pulled out with the help of a false thorn.
So, what is the relatioweeation and hypnosis? Only this: hypnosis is required to pull out the false thorns stu your body.
An example of hypnosis is when I tell you to feel that the body is relaxing.
This is hypnosis.
Actually you yourself have assumed that the body ot relax.
In order to nullify this assumption, hypnosis is necessary -- otherwise not.
Were it not for your false assumption, feeling just ohat the body is relaxed, it will relax.
The suggestions I give you are not really to relax your bodies, but to take away your belief that the body ever relax.
This ot be dohout creating a ter-belief in you that the body is relaxing.
Your false cept will be ralized by this false cept, and when your body relaxes, you will know it is relaxed.
Relaxation is a very natural quality of the body, but you have filled yourselves with so much tension that now you have to do something to get rid of it.
This is as far as hypnosis goes.
When you begin to feel the body is relaxing, the breathing is relaxing, the mind is calming down -- this is hypnosis.
But only up to this point.
What follows afterwards is meditation -- up to this point there is ation.
Meditation begins after this, when you are iate of awareness.
When you bee aware within, when you begin to withat the body is relaxed, that the breathing is relaxed, that thoughts have either ceased or are still moving -- when you begin to watch, just watch -- this watg, this state of witnessing is meditation.
Whatever is before that is only hypnosis.
So hypnosis means a cultivated sleep.
When we are not sleepy, we induce sleep; we make an effort, we invite sleep.
Sleep also be invited if we prepare for it and move into a state of let-go.
But meditation and hypnosis are not one and the same thing.
Please uand this.
As long as you are feeling acc to my suggestions, that is hypnosis.
Once you feel my suggestions stopping and awareness beginning, that is the start of meditation.
Meditation begins with the advent of the state of witnessing.
Hypnosis is needed because you have got yourselves into a reverse kind of hypnosis.
In stific terms, this is not hypnosis, it is dehypnosis.
We are already hypnotized, although we are not aware how we became hypnotized and what kind of tricks we have used to create this hypnosis.
We have lived the major part of our lives uhe influence of hypnosis.
And when we want to be hypnotized, we dont realize what we are doing.
We live throughout our lives like this.
If this bees clear, the hypnotic spell will break -- and ohis hypnosis breaks, entering within will bee possible, because hypnosis, basically, is a world of noy.
For example, a man is learning to ride a bicycle.
To practice, he starts out on a wide road.
The road is sixty feet wide, and there is a milestone on the edge.
Even if the man decided to ride blindfolded on that wide road, there is very little ce of his hitting the milestone.
But the ma yet know how to ride a bicycle.
He never looks at the road; his eyes spot the milestone first and the fear that he might hit the milestone grips him.
Thats it.
As soon as this fear of hitting the stone grips him, he is hypnotized.
To say he bees hypnotized means he no longer sees the road, he begins to see the stone alone.
He bees afraid, and the handle of his bicycle starts turning toward the stone.
The more the haurns, the more afraid he gets.
The handle, of course, will turn where his attention is, and his attention is oone because he is afraid to hit it.
So the road disappears from his vision and only the stone remains.
Hypnotized by the stone, he is pulled towards it.
The more pulled he is, the more he is scared; the more he is scared, the more he is pulled.
Finally he hits the milestone.
Watg this, any intelligent person might wonder how, on such a wide road, the man hit the milestone.
How e he couldnt keep himself away from it? Obviously, he was hypnotized.
He trated oone in order to save himself from landing on top of it, and this made him see nothing but the stone.
When his mind became fixed oone, his hands automatically turhe bicycle in that dire, because the body follows your attention.
The more scared he grew, the more he had to trate oone.
He became hypnotized by the stone; his fear drew him toward the stone, and he finally crashed into it.
In life, we often make those very mistakes we would rather avoid.
We bee hypnotized by them.
For example, a man is afraid he may lose his peaind a angry.
In this situation, he will find himself getting angry twenty-four times iy-four hours.
The more afraid he is of getting angry, the more he will be hypnotized by anger.
Then he will look for excuses to be angry the whole twenty-four hours.
Another man who is afraid to look at beautiful women because they might excite him sexually, will see beautiful women the whole twenty-four hours.
By and by, even ugly women will appear beautiful to him; even men will begin to look like women to him.
If from behind he sees a sadhu with long hair, he will make sure which it is, a man or a woman.
Eventually women in pictures and on posters will begin to attract him, to hypnotize him.
He will hide pictures of nude women ia and the Koran, and will look at them without even w how he be so hypnotized by mere lines and colors.
He has always wao save himself from women and now he is afraid of them; now he sees women everywhere.
Whether he goes to a temple or to a mosque, or anywhere else, he sees nothing but women.
This is hypnosis too.
A society which is against sex eventually bees sexual.
A society which is anti-sex, which denounces sex -- its whole mind will bee sexual, because it will be hypnotized by the very thing it criticizes; all its attention will be trated on it.
The more a society talks of celibacy, the more dirty-minded and lecherous the people will be who are born into it.
The reason is that too much talk of celibacy focuses the mind on sexuality.
All this is hypnosis -- created by us -- and we are living in it.
The whole world is entangled in this hypnosis.
And it is difficult to break, because the hypnosis grht along with whatsoever attempts we make to break it.
In this fashion, God knows how many kinds of hypnoses we have already created, and are still tinuing to create for ourselves.
And then we live with them.
They o be broken so we wake up.
But to cut through this false web, we o discover false means.
In a way, all sadhana, all spiritual practice, is meant to remove the falsehood from around us.
And so, all sadhana is false.
Methods devised all over the world to help us reach God are false, because we have never been away from him.
Only in thought have we been away from him.
It is just as if a mao sleep in Dwarka and dream that he is in Calcutta.
Now, in his dream he begins to worry: his wife is ill and here he is in Calcutta; he must get back to Dwarka.
He goes around asking people, cheg the railway timetable, inquiring about plane flights, to get back to Dwarka as soon as he .
But any suggestion he might take on how to reach Dwarka will be wrong, will get him into trouble, because he is not in Calcutta in the first place.
He never went to Calcutta -- it was only a dream, a hypnosis.
Whatever way someone might show him for returning to Dwarka will only put him into trouble.
No path has any meaning; all paths are false.
Even if the maurns to Dwarka, the route he would take would be false.
He ot find the right way back because there ever be one: he never went to Calcutta in the first place.
What does it mean for him to find a way back? The train he will ride to Dwarka will be as false as Calcutta was.
If he goes to Howrah Station, buys a ticket and catches a train to Dwarka -- all of this will be false.
All the stations he will pass on his way back will be false.
Then he would arrive in Dwarka and wake up happy.
But he would be surprised to find that he had never gone anywhere, that he had been in his bed all along.
Then how did he e back? His going was false and so was his return.
No one has ever goside God.
One ot, because, all over, only he is -- there is no way one step out of him.
And so, all going is false, all returning is false.
However, since we have already left on an imaginary journey, we will have to return; there is no other way.
We will have to find the means to return.
But once you have returned, you will find that all methods were false, all sadhana was false.
The sadhana was necessary t us back from the dream.
Once we have uood this, perhaps nothing will have to be dohen, and you will suddenly find that you have returned.
But this is difficult to uand because you are already in Calcutta.
You may say, "What you are saying is right but I am already in Calcutta.
Show me the way back!"
Question 3
ANOTHER FRIEND HAS ASKED: HAVE YOU FOUND GOD?
This is just the kind of questioraveler to Calcutta would ask.
I would like to ask this friend, "Did you ever lose God?" -- because, if I say I have found God, it means I had assumed him lost.
He is already found.
Even when we feel we have lost him, he is still with us.
It is simply that we are under hypnosis and therefore feel we have lost him.
So, if a man says, "Yes, I have found God", he is mistaken.
He still doesnt uand that he had never lost him in the first place.
Therefore, those who e to know God will never say they have found God.
They will say, "He was never lost.
"
The day Buddha became enlightened, people gathered around him and asked, "What have you attained?"
Buddha replied, "I have attained nothing.
I have simply e to see that which I had never lost.
I have found what I already had.
"
So, in sympathy, the people of the village said, "Too bad.
You labored in vain.
"
"Yes," said Buddha, "in that se is true I labored in vain.
But now there is no need for me to labor any more -- this much advantage I have gained.
Now I wont go out seeking, now I wont wao attain anything, now I wo out on any journey -- that is my gain.
Now I know that I am where I already was.
"
We only go away in our dreams.
We never actually reach the places we feel we have.
Hence, in a sense, all religions are false; all sadhanas, all yogas are false.
They are false in the sehat they are all methods of returning.
Ahey are very useful.
A village shaman who shakes off snake poison with the help of mantras is very useful for those who are bitten by a snake -- even if they are bitten by a false snake.
Otherwise, without him people would die of the bite from a snake which was not there.
Such a man once lived in my neighborhood.
He is now dead.
People came to him from far and wide to draw snake venom out.
He was a very clever man; he had tamed a few snakes.
When a person bitten by a snake came to him he would use his shaman skills and ask what kind of s was, where it had bitten, whether the snake was dead or alive.
After obtaining all the information, he would apply his trid call the snake.
He had everything worked out -- whiake was to be set loose, on which signal, etcetera.
Within an hour or so, a shat matched the description would e through the door, hissing.
The whole thing would create a sensation; the bitten man would feel dumbfounded.
Someoten by a snake rarely see ure anything ht: What bit him? What did it look like? Where was it? -- he is so overwhelmed by being bitten that the snake disappears in the meantime.
If the snake had been killed, the shaman would call its soul to apany his snake.
Then he would scold and rebuke the snake for biting this man.
The snake would then hit its head on the ground and beg fiveness.
In the meahe poison in the man would start wearing off.
Then the snake would be told to draw out the poison.
The snake would promptly go up to the man who had been bitten and put its mouth to the wound, and the man would recover.
Unfortunately, it once happened a s this mans son.
He got into trouble because none of his treatments worked.
He came running to me and said, "Please help.
I am in trouble.
Please tell me what I should do.
A snake has bitten my son and he knows about my pet snakes.
I am so unfortunate, please tell me what shall I do? I am helpless.
My son wont survive!"
I was surprised.
I asked, "But what about your treatment? People e to you from afar for this cure!"
"Thats all fine," he said, "but even I would be in trouble if a snake were to bite me; I wouldnt even be able to save myself.
I know the tricks of the trade; I wouldnt trust anybody to treat me the way I do.
" The boy died.
He could not save his son.
False means are o remove the falsehood.
And they have their own meaningfulness.
They are meaningful because we have goo falsehoods.
So never bother to ask; in the beginning it is indeed hypnosis.
The initial stages are of hypnosis, of sleep; only the final stage is of meditation -- and that is the precious one.
Before you attain to that stage, this background is quite necessary -- necessary so you e out of the falsehood you have strayed into.
Never ask, "Have you or have you not found God?"<tt></tt> This is all wrong.
Who is going to find? What is going to be found? That which is, is.
The day you e to know this, you will see that you have never lost anything, nor have you ever gone anywhere; nothing has ever beeroyed, nothing has ever died.
What is, is.
That day, all journeys, all going anywhere, will stop.
Question 4
AND NOW THIS QUESTION: WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIBERATION FROM THE CYCLE OF BIRTH AH?
Liberation from the cycle of birth ah does not mean that you will not be born here again.
It means that now there is her ing noing -- nowhere, not on any plane.
Then you remain rooted where you are.
The day this happens, the springs of joy burst forth on all sides.
We ot experience joy being in an imaginary place, we only find joy being where we really are.
We only be happy being what we are, we ever be happy being what we are not.
So moving through the cycle of birth ah means we are wandering through illusory places -- we are lost somewhere we have never ever been.
We are wandering through some place where we are never ever supposed to be, while the place where we actually are, we have lost sight of it.
So freedom from birth ah means ing back to where we are, ing bae.
Moving into God means beily what we actually are.
It is not as if someday you will e across God standing somewhere and you will salute him and say, "Thank heaven I met you!" There is no such God as this, and if you happen to e across one, know well it is all hypnosis.
Such a God will be your owion, aing him will be as false as losing him was.
This is not the way you will ever find God.
Our language often proves misleading, because the expression "to find God" or "to attain God" gives the impression one will be able to see God face-to-face.
Such words are very misleading.
Listening to them ohe idea that somebody will reveal himself, that one will have ao-eye tact with him, that one will be able to embrace him.
This is all wrong.
If you ever do e across such a God, beware! Such a God will be totally a creation of your mind -- it will be hypnosis.
We have to get out of all hypnosis arace our steps back to the point where there is no sleep, no hypnosis, where we are fully aware, rooted in our own beings.
The experiene will have then will be the experience of the unity of life; it will be the experience of existence being one, indivisible.
The name of that experience is God.
Now let us prepare for the m meditation.
I will discuss some more during ht meditation.
Move to a little distance from each other.
And do not talk, quietly move to a distance.
Make some empty space around you.
Those who want to lie down, do so; they should create spaough for lying down.
And even in the middle, if someone es to the point of falling down, one should fall down, one should not stop oneself from it.
Yes, go to the verandah upstairs, but make room for yourself.
.
Because later if you fall over somebody you will feel bad, and the other will get distracted too.
Therefore, move apart.
Yes, e down here.
Close the eyes
No children will talk, they will sit quietly for ten minutes.
Close the eyes
.
leave the body relaxed
.
leave the body relaxed.
Leave the body pletely relaxed, as if there is no life in the body.
Let the whole energy move inside.
The whole energy of the body is moving inwards
.
flowing inwards
.
we are getting shrunken inside, and the body will remain like a shell hanging outside.
Whether it falls down, or remaihered, it will remaiernal like clothing.
Slip within
.
and leave the body relaxed.
Now, I will give suggestions.
Experiehem along with me.
Experiehat the body is relaxing
.
the body is relaxing
.
the body is relaxing.
Feel it and leave the body totally relaxed.
The body is very obedient.
When you feel it wholeheartedly it will bee almost a corpse.
Feel that the body is relaxing
.
the body is relaxing
.
the body is relaxing
.
the body is relaxing
.
the body is going on relaxing.
Let go, let go of all grip
.
do not keep holding on to the body from inside, let go pletely
.
take away all trol over it, as if the body is not ones own; now whatever will happen to it will happen.
If it fallls down it falls down, if one loses it one loses it.
Move back away from it petely
.
remove your feelings from it.
The body is relaxing.
The body is relaxing
.
the body is relaxing
.
the body is relaxing
.
the body is relaxing
.
the body is relaxing.
The body has relaxed.
Drop, drop all grip over the body
.
if it falls, let it fall.
The body has relaxed
.
as if it has pletely bee a corpse
.
as if the body is gone
.
the body is no more
.
we have bee separate from it
.
we have moved away from it.
The breathing is relaxing.
Feel that the breathing is going on relaxing
.
the breathing is relaxing
.
the breathing is relaxing
.
the breathing is relaxing
.
the breathing is relaxing
.
the breathing is relaxing
.
the breathing is going on relaxing
.
the breathing is going on relaxing.
Let go
.
let go of the breathing as well
.
move further within.
The breathing has relaxed
.
the breathing has relaxed
.
the breathing has relaxed
.
the breathing has relaxed.
You have moved even further behind the breathing
.
the breathing has relaxed.
The thoughts are also relaxing.
The thoughts are also relaxing
.
the thoughts are also relaxing.
Move away from the thoughts also
.
let go of the thoughts also.
The thoughts are also relaxing
.
the thoughts are also relaxing
.
the thoughts are also relaxing
.
the thoughts are also relaxing
.
the thoughts are also relaxing
.
the thoughts are also relaxing.
Let go of the thoughts also.
Thoughts are relaxing
.
thoughts are relaxing
.
thoughts are relaxing
.
thoughts are relaxing.
The body has relaxed, the thoughts have relaxed, for ten minutes now just remain awake inside
.
for ten minutes now just remain awake inside.
For ten minutes everything has died; inside we have remained awake like a flame.
The body is lying far away
.
the breathing is heard in the far distance
.
the thoughts have quietened
.
inside our sciousness is awake watg it all.
Do not fall asleep, remain awake inside.
Keep awake within
.
keep watg within
.
keep watg
.
bee a watcher and a suddeh will begin
.
a quietness will begin
.
a void will begin.
Now for ten minutes just go on watg within quietly.
Mind has bee silent
.
mind has bee pletely silent.
Drown deeper into the depths
.
as if falling into a deep well.
Go on falling
.
go on falling.
Stay awake inside and go on being ainess.
Remain scious inside, remain awake and keep watg.
And everything has died.
the body has remained far away, the breathing is left far behind, the thoughts have disappeared -- only we have remained.
Just keep watg wakefully.
keep watg.
the mind will go on beiier.
Slowly take a few deep breaths and e back from the meditation.
Open your eyes slowly and very gently.
Our m session is now over.
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