THE SONG CONTINUES:
THE PRACTICE OF MANTRA AND PARAMITA, INSTRUCTION IN THE SUTRAS AND PRECEPTS, AND TEACHING FROM THE SCHOOLS AND SCRIPTURES, WILL NOT BRING REALIZATION OF THE INNATE TRUTH. FOR IF THE MIND WHEN FILLED WITH SOME DESIRE SHOULD SEEK A GOAL, IT ONLY HIDES THE LIGHT.
HE WHO KEEPS TANTRIC PRECEPTS, YET DISCRIMINATES, BETRAYS THE SPIRIT OF SAMAYA. CEASE ALL ACTIVITY, ABANDON ALL DESIRE, LET THOUGHTS RISE AND FALL AS THEY WILL LIKE OCEAN WAVES. HE WHO NEVER HARMS THE NON-ABIDING, NOR THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-DISTINCTION, UPHOLDS THE TANTRIC PRECEPTS.
HE WHO ABANDONS CRAVING AND CLINGS NOT TO THIS AND THAT, PERCEIVES THE REAL MEANING GIVEN IN THE SCRIPTURES.
The tantra attitude is the very being of Tilopa. You must understand first what the tantra attitude is,
only then it will be possible for you to comprehend what Tilopa is trying to say. So something about
the tantra attitude – the first thing: it is not an attitude, because tantra looks at life with a total vision.
It has no attitude to look at life. It has no concepts, it is not a philosophy. It is not even a religion, it
has no theology. It doesn’t believe in words, theories, doctrines. It wants to look at life without any
philosophy, without any theory, without any theology. It wants to look at life as it is, without bringing
any mind in between – because that will be the distortion. The mind then will project, the mind then
will mix – and then you will not be able to know that which is.
Tantra avoids mind and encounters life face to face, neither thinking, ”This is good,” nor thinking,
”This is bad”: simply facing that which is. So it is difficult to say that this is an attitude – in fact it is a
no-attitude.
The second thing to remember, that tantra is a great yea-sayer; it says yes to everything. It has
nothing like ”no” in its vocabulary, there is no negation. It never says no to anything, because with
no the fight starts, with no you become the ego. The moment you say no to anything, you have
become the ego already; a conflict has come in, now you are at war.
Tantra loves, and loves unconditionally. It never says no to anything whatsoever, because everything
is part of the whole, and everything has its own place in the whole, and the whole cannot exist without
anything missing from it.
It is said that even if a drop of water is missing, the whole existence will thirst. You pluck a flower in
the garden, and you have plucked something out of the whole existence. You harm a flower, and you
have harmed millions of stars – because everything is interrelated. The whole exists as a whole, as
an organic whole. The whole exists not as a mechanical thing – everything is related to everything
else.
So tantra says yes unconditionally. There has never been any other vision of life which says yes
without any conditions – simply yes. No disappears; from your very being no disappears. When
there is no NO, how can you fight? How can you be at war? You simply float. You simply merge
and melt. You become one. The boundaries are there no more. No creates the boundary. No IS the
boundary around you. Whenever you say no, watch – immediately something closes in. Whenever
you say yes, your being opens.
The real atheist is one who goes on saying no to life; his saying no to God is just symbolic. You
may be believing in God, but if you say no to anything, your belief is not of any worth, your God is
hocus-pocus – because only a total yes creates a real God, reveals the real God. When you say
total yes to existence, the whole existence suddenly is transformed; then there are no more rocks,
no more trees, no more persons, rivers, mountains – suddenly everything has become one, and that
oneness is God.
A real theist is one who says yes to everything, not only to God... because mind is very cunning.
You can say yes to God and no to the world. This has happened. Millions have lost their whole life
because of this. They say yes to God and they say no to life. In fact, they think that unless you
say no to life, how can you say yes to God? They create a division: they deny the world in order to
accept God. But an acceptance that stands on a denial is no acceptance at all. It is false. It is a
pretension.
How can you accept the creator without accepting the creation? If you say no to the creation, how
can you say yes to the creator? They are one. The creator and the creation are not two things:
the creator is the creation. In fact there is no division between the creator and the creation, it is a
continuous process of creativity. On one pole the creativity looks like the creator; on another pole
the creativity looks like the creation – but they are both the poles of the same phenomenon.
Tantra says that if you say yes, you say simply yes; you don’t posit against some no. But all the
religions have done that: they say no to the world and yes to God; and they say no to the world
forcibly, so that their yes can become stronger. Many so-called saints have said, ”God, we accept
you, but we don’t accept your world.” But what type of acceptance is this? Is this acceptance? You
are choosing. You are dissecting the existence into two. You are putting yourself above God. You
say, ”This we accept and that we deny.” All renunciation comes out of this.
One who renounces is not a religious person. In the view of tantra, one who renounces is an egoist.
First he was accumulating things of the world, but his attention was on the world. Now he renounces,
but his attention is again on the world and he remains the egoist. The ego has subtle ways of fulfilling
itself and coming again and again, in spirals. Again and again it comes back – with a new face, with
new colors.
It happened: I was staying in my village and Mulla Nasruddin came to visit me. He, in those days,
used to live in New Delhi, the capital, and he was so full of the capital that he was almost blind. I
took him to the small fort of my village; he said, ”What! You call this a fort? You should come to New
Delhi and see the Red Fort. This is nothing!” I took him to the river, and he says, ”What! You call
this a river? I have never seen such a sick and thin river in my life.” And this happened everywhere.
Then came the full moon night, and I thought that at least with the full moon he will be happy and
he will not bring this small village in. But no, I was wrong. I took him to the river. It was a beautiful
silent evening, and then the moon came up – very big, simply wonderful. And I looked at Nasruddin
and said, ”Look! What a big moon.”
He looked at the moon, shrugged his shoulders and said, ”Not bad for a small village like this.”
This is the mind: it persists, it comes in spirals – again and again to the same thing. You can
renounce the world, but you will not become other-worldly; you will remain very worldly. And if you
want to check, you go to the Indian monks, SADHUS: they remain very very worldly, rooted in the
world. They have renounced everything, but their focus is on the world, their focus is on renouncing,
their focus is ego-centered, ego-oriented. They may be thinking that by renouncing they are nearing
God – no. Nobody has ever reached to the divine by saying no to anything.
This is the vision of tantra. Tantra says: ”You say yes. You say yes to everything. You need not
fight, you need not even swim – you simply float with the current. The river is going by itself, on its
own accord, everything reaches to the ultimate ocean. You simply don’t create any disturbance, you
don’t push the river, you simply go with it.” That going with it, floating with it, relaxing with it, is tantra.
If you can say yes, a deep acceptance happens to you. If you say yes, how can you be complaining?
How can you be miserable? Then everything is as it should be. You are not fighting, not denying –
you accept. And remember, this acceptance is different from ordinary acceptance.
Ordinarily a person accepts a situation when he feels helpless; that is impotent acceptance. That
will not lead you anywhere; impotence cannot lead you anywhere. A person accepts a situation
when he feels hopeless: ”Nothing can be done, so what to do? At least accept, to save face.” Tantra
acceptance is not that type of acceptance. It comes out of an overfulfilment, it comes out of a deep
contentment – not out of hopelessness, frustration, helplessness. It comes when you don’t say no,
it suddenly surfaces in you. Your whole being becomes a deep contentment.
That acceptance has a beauty of its own. It is not forced; you have not practiced for it. If you practice,
it will be false, it will be a hypocrisy. If you practice, you will be split in two: on the outside it will be
acceptance; deep down, the turmoil, the negation, the denial. Deep down you will be boiling up to
explode any moment. Just on the surface you will pretend that everything is okay.
Tantra acceptance is total, it doesn’t split you. All the religions of the world, except tantra, have
created split personalities. All the religions of the world, except tantra, have created schizophrenia.
They split you. They make something bad in you and something good. And they say the good has
to be achieved and the bad denied, the devil has to be denied and God accepted. They create a
split within you and a fight. Then you are continuously feeling guilty, because how can you destroy
the part that is organically one with you? You may call it bad, you may call it names; that doesn’t
make any difference. How can you destroy it? You never created it. You have simply found it – given.
Anger is there, sex is there, greed is there – you have not created them; they are given facts of life,
just like your eyes and your hands. You can call them names, you can call them ugly or beautiful or
whatsoever you like, but you cannot kill them.
Nothing can be killed out of existence, nothing can be destroyed.
Tantra says a transformation is possible, but destruction? – no. And a transformation comes when
you accept your total being. Then suddenly everything falls in line, then everything takes its own
place; then anger is also absorbed, then greed is also absorbed. Then without trying to cut anything
out of your being, your whole being rearranges itself. If you accept and say yes, a rearrangement
happens, and whereas before there was a noisy clamor inside, now a melody, a music is born, a
harmony comes in.
In noise and in harmony, what is the difference? The same sound waves arranged in a different way.
In a noise there is no center; the notes are the same. A madman playing on the piano; the notes
are the same, the sound is the same, but a madman playing – it has no center to it. If you can give
center to noise it becomes music, then it converges on a center and everything becomes organic.
If a madman is playing on the piano, then every note is separate, individual; it is a crowd of notes,
not a melody. And when a musician plays on the same piano with the same fingers, there comes an
alchemical change: now the same notes have fallen into a pattern, the same notes have joined into
an organic unity, now they have a center to them. Now they are not a crowd, now they are a family;
a subtle love joins them together – now they are one. And that is the whole art: to bring notes into a
loving phenomenon – they become harmonious.
Tantra says you are a noise right now as you are. Nothing is wrong in it – simply you don’t have a
center. Once you have a center, everything falls in line, and everything becomes beautiful.
When Gurdjieff gets angry it is beautiful. When you get angry it is ugly. Anger is neither ugly nor
beautiful. When Jesus gets angry it is sheer music – even anger. When Jesus takes a whip in the
temple and chases out the traders, out of the temple, there is a subtle beauty to it. Even Buddha
lacks that beauty; Buddha seems to be one-sided. It seems anger has nothing in it to play; the
tension of anger, the salt of it is not there. Buddha doesn’t taste as good as Jesus. Jesus has a
little salt in him, he can get angry – even his anger has become part of his whole being; nothing has
been denied, everything has been accepted.
But Tilopa is incomparable. Jesus is nothing.... The tantra masters are simply wild flowers, they
have everything in them. You must have seen Bodhidharma pictures; if you have not seen, look
again – so ferocious that if you meditate on Bodhidharma’s picture in the night, alone, you will not
be able to sleep: he will haunt you. It is said of him that once he looked at anybody, that man would
have nightmares continuously. He would haunt him; the very look, so ferocious. When Bodhidharma
or Tilopa spoke, it is said their speaking was like a lion’s roar, a thundercloud, a tremendous waterfall
– wild, fiery.
But if you wait a little and don’t judge them too soon, you will find within them the most loving of all
hearts. Then you will feel the music, the melody in them. And then suddenly you will realize that they
have not denied anything; they have absorbed everything, even ferociousness. A lion is beautiful,
even its ferociousness has a beauty of its own. You take the ferociousness out of a lion and he is
just a stuffed lion, dead.
Tantra says everything has to be absorbed, EVERYTHING! – remember, without any condition. Sex
has to be absorbed, then it becomes a tremendous force in you. A Buddha, a Tilopa, a Jesus, they
have such a magnetic force around them – what is that? Sex absorbed. Sex is human magnetism.
Suddenly you fall into their love. Once you come across their path, you are being pulled to a different
world altogether. You are torn from your old world, and you are being pulled to something new,
something that you never even dreamt about. What is this force? It is the same sex which has
become transformed; now it has become a magnetism, a charisma. Buddha has anger absorbed;
that very anger becomes compassion. And when Jesus takes the whip in his hand, it is because of
compassion. When Jesus talks in fire, this is same compassion.
Remember this, that tantra accepts you in your totality. When you come to me, I accept you in your
totality. I am not here to help you deny anything. I am here only to help you to rearrange, to get a
center of all your energies, to converge them to a center. And I tell you that you will be richer if you
have anger absorbed in it; you will be richer if you have sex absorbed in it; you will be richer if you
have hatred, jealousy, absorbed into it – they are the spices of life, and you will taste.... You will not
become tasteless, you will have an enrichment to your taste. You need a little salt. And anger is
exactly in the same amount as it is needed. When it overpowers you, then it becomes ugly. If you
eat only salt then you will die. Salt has a proportion, and in the proportion it is needed, absolutely
needed. Remember this.
On the path you will meet many people who would like to cripple you, to cut you, to dissect you.
They will say, ”This hand is bad, cut it off! This eye is bad, throw it out! Anger is bad, hate is bad,
sex is bad.” They will go on cutting you, and by the time they have left you, you are simply paralyzed,
a crippled one. You have no life left. That’s how the whole civilization has become paralyzed and
crippled.
Unless tantra becomes the foundation of the whole human mind, man will not be complete – because
no other vision accepts man in his totality. But the acceptance, remember again, is of overflowing, it
is not of impotence.
One lives one’s life, one goes through it: each shade of it has to be lived, and each taste of it has to
be tasted. Even the wandering, even going astray is meaningful, because if you never go astray you
will not achieve to an enriched enlightenment, you will never be simple. You may be a simpleton, but
you will never be simple – and a simpleton is not simple.
Simplicity needs a very deep and complex experience behind it. A simpleton is simply without
experience. He may be a fool, but he cannot be a sage. A sage is one who has lived all the sins
of life, who has not denied anything, who has not called anything a sin, who has simply accepted
whatsoever has happened, who has allowed it to happen; who has moved with every wave, who has
drifted, who went astray, who fell down to the very hell.
Somewhere Nietzsche says, ”If a tree wants to reach to the sky, its roots need to go to the very hell.”
He’s right. If you want a real flowering into the sky, your roots will need to go to the deepest hell in
the earth.
When a sinner becomes a sage, the sage has a beauty. When a sage is simply a sage, without
becoming ever a sinner, he is just a simpleton, he has missed life. And no virtue can come out
unless there has been a wandering away, going astray.
There is a beautiful parable Jesus tells: One father had two sons. The younger son asked for his
heritage, took it away, wasted it in the city with wine and women, became a beggar. The other son
remained with the father, worked hard in the farms, accumulated much wealth. And then one day,
the beggar-son, the son who had gone astray, informed his father, ”I am coming back – I was a fool, I
wasted your wealth. Forgive me. Now I have nowhere to go, accept me, I am coming back.” And the
father said to his sons, ”Celebrate this occasion. Kill the fattest sheep, make many delicious foods,
distribute sweets to the whole town, find out the oldest wine for him. This is going to be a feast – my
son who had gone astray is coming back.”
Some people from the village went to the farm, and they told the other son, ”Look – what injustice!
You have been with your father, you served him like a servant, you never went astray, you never
did anything against him, but a feast was never given in your honor, it was never celebrated. And
now that vagabond, that beggar, who has wasted all your father’s money and who has lived in sin,
is coming back. And look at the injustice – your father is celebrating it. Come to the town! Sweets
are being distributed, a great feast is being arranged.”
Of course, the elder son felt very very angry. He came back, he was very sad, and he told to his
father, ”What type of injustice is this? You never killed any sheep for me, you never gave me any gift.
And now that son of yours is coming back, who has wasted all the wealth that you had given him,
and wasted it in wrong ways – and you are celebrating it.”
The father said, ”Yes, because you have always been with me, there is no need. But his coming
back HAS to be celebrated: he had gone astray, he is the sheep lost and found again.”
This story has not been taken in its full significance by Christians. In fact, it says what I am saying,
what tantra means; it is a tantra story. It means that if you remain always on the right path, you will
not be celebrated by existence. You will be a simpleton, you will not be enriched by life. You will
not have any salt in you; you may be nutritious, but no spices. You will be very simple, good, but
your goodness will not have a complex harmony in it. You will be a single note, not millions of notes
falling into a melody. You will be a straight line, with no curves and no corners. Those curves and
corners give a beauty, they make life more mysterious, they give depth. You will be shallow in your
saintlihood, you will not have any depth in you.
That’s why tantra says everything is beautiful. Even sin is beautiful, because sin gives depth to your
saintlihood. Even going astray is beautiful, because coming back becomes more enriched. This
world is needed for you to move into it deeply so that you forget yourself completely – and then a
coming back.
People ask, ”Why does this world exist if God is against it? Then why does he throw us into the
world, into the world of karmas, sins, wrongs? Why does he throw us? He can simply redeem us.”
That is not possible. Then you will be shallow, superficial. You have to be thrown to the farthest
corner of the world, and you have to come back. That coming back has something in it – that
something is the crystallization of your being.
Tantra accepts everything, LIVES everything. That’s why tantra never could become a very accepted
ideology. It always remained a fringe ideology, just somewhere on the boundary, outside the society,
civilization, because civilization has chosen to be shallow; good, but shallow. Civilization has chosen
to deny, to say no to many things. Civilization is not courageous enough to accept all, to accept
everything that life gives.
The greatest courage in the world is to accept all that life gives to you. And this is what I am trying to
help you towards, to accept all that life gives you, and accept it in deep humbleness, as a gift. And
when I say this, even those things which society has conditioned you to call wrong and bad. Accept
sex, and then there will come a flowering out of it; a brahmacharya will come, a purity, an innocence
will come; a virginity will come out of it – but that will be a transcendence.
Through experience one transcends.
Moving in the dark alleys of life one’s eyes become trained, and one starts seeing the light even in
darkness. What beauty is there if you can see light while there is day! The beauty is there when
there is the darkest night, and your eyes are so trained into darkness that you can see the day
hidden there. When in the darkest night you can see the morning, then there is beauty, then you
have achieved. When in the lowest you can see the highest, when even in hell you can create a
heaven, then, then you have become the artist of life. And tantra wants to make you the artists of
life – not deniers, but great yea-sayers.
Accept, and, by and by, you will feel the more you accept, the less is there desire. If you accept,
how can desire stand there? Whatsoever the case is in this moment, you accept it. Then there is no
movement for anything else. You live it moment to moment in deep acceptance. You grow without
there being any goal, without there being any desire to go somewhere and be something else or
somebody else.
Tantra says, ”Be yourself” – and that is the only being you can achieve ever. With acceptance desires
fall. With acceptance, a desirelessness comes into being by itself. You don’t practice it, you don’t
force it upon yourself. You don’t cut your desires – just by accepting, they disappear.
And when suddenly one moment happens that you accept totally and all desires have gone, there
is a sudden enlightenment. Suddenly, without doing anything on your part, it happens. That’s the
greatest gift this existence can give to you.
This is the tantra attitude towards life. There is no other life than this, and there is no other world
than this. This very SAMSARA is the nirvana. Just you have to be a little more understanding, more
accepting, more childlike, less egoistic.
Now, the sutras of Tilopa.
THE PRACTICE OF MANTRA AND PARAMITA, INSTRUCTION IN THE SUTRAS AND
PRECEPTS, AND TEACHING FROM THE SCHOOLS AND SCRIPTURES, WILL NOT BRING
REALIZATION OF THE INNATE TRUTH.
No VEDAS will help, no BIBLES. The practice of mantra will not be of any help; rather, it can become
a hindrance. What is a mantra in fact? What are you doing when you are chanting a mantra? What
is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi teaching people when he is teaching transcendental meditation? He is
saying to repeat a certain word or a certain mantra continuously inside. Ram, Ram, Ram; AUM,
AUM, AUM; anything, even your own name will do; even if you repeat ”H20, H20, H20,” that will do
– because the question is not the sound or the word. The question is if you repeat continuously
something, by the very repetition something happens. What is that?
When you repeat a certain word continuously, a rhythm is created inside: Ram, Ram, Ram – a
rhythm is created, and the rhythm is monotonous. Whenever you repeat a certain word continuously,
a monotony happens. Monotonous... repeating a certain word continuously, you start feeling sleepy.
This is what hypnosis is, this is autohypnosis; repeating a mantra is autohypnotizing. You become
drunk from your own monotonous sound-rhythm.
It is good! Nothing is bad in it; it gives you a good sleep, very refreshing. If you are tired, it is
a good mental trick; you will feel fresh, even fresher than you can feel in ordinary sleep, because
the ordinary sleep cannot go so deep as a mantra sleep can go, because in ordinary sleep many
thoughts continue, dreams continue, they continuously disturb. But if you repeat a certain mantra
continuously, nothing else can be there, only the mantra. It takes you to very very deep sleep.
In yoga we have a special word for it; in Sanskrit sleep is called NIDRA, and a sleep created by
mantra chanting is called TANDRA. That is a deeper sleep but still sleep, it is called YOGA-TANDRA
– sleep created by yoga, mantra, chanting.
If you are disturbed in your sleep, TM can be helpful. That’s why in America it seems Maharishi’s
influence has been great, because America is the most disturbed country as far as sleep is
concerned. So many tranquilizers are being used; so many sleeping pills are being used. People
have lost the natural capacity to sleep – hence the influence. In India, nobody bothers about TM
because people are already sleeping so deeply that it is difficult to wake them.
A mantra gives you a subtle sleep; as far as it goes it is good – but don’t think that it is meditation,
then you become a victim. Don’t think that it is a meditation; it is just a mental tranquilizer. And it is
as chemical as any sleeping pill? – because sound changes the chemistry of your body, sound is
part of the chemistry of your body. That’s why in a certain type of music you feel very very refreshed;
the music falls on you, cleanses you, as if you have taken a bath. Sound changes the chemistry of
your body. There are certain types of music which will make you very passionate and sexual; just
their hitting sounds change your chemistry of the body.
A mantra is creating an inner music with a single note; monotony is basic to it. And there is no
need to ask Maharishi Mahesh Yogi about it – every mother in the world knows about it. Whenever
the child is restless, she hums a lullaby – a lullaby is a mantra: just two or three words, even
meaningless, no need for any meaning to be there. She sits by the side of the child, or takes the
child near her heart – that too, the beating of the heart, is a monotonous music. So whenever a
child is restless, the mother puts his head on her heart, the beat of the heart becomes a mantra.
And the child is befooled; he falls asleep. Or, if the child has grown a little and cannot be befooled
so easily, then she chants a lullaby; just two or three words, monotonous, simple words, she goes
on repeating. Monotony helps; the child falls into sleep – nothing bad in it: better tranquilizer than
any chemical pill. But still a tranquilizer, a pill – subtle, a sound-pill, but it affects the chemistry of the
body.
So if you are disturbed in your sleep, if you have a certain degree of insomnia, it is good, but don’t
think that it is meditation. It will make you more and more adjusted, but it will not transform you. And
the whole society is always trying to make you more adjusted to it. It has tried religion to make you
adjusted to it. It has tried morality, it has tried mantra, yogas. It has tried psychoanalysis, and many
types of psychiatry, to bring you back to the adjusted society. The whole goal of the society is how
to create an adjusted individual. But if the whole society is wrong, being adjusted to it cannot be
good. If the whole society is mad, being adjusted to it means only becoming mad.
Somebody asked Sigmund Freud once, ”In fact, what exactly are you doing in psychoanalysis, and
what is the goal of it?” He said – and he was a really authentic person – he said, ”At the most what
we can do is this: we make hysterical, unhappy people normally unhappy. That’s all – hysterically
unhappy people, normally unhappy; we bring them back to the normal unhappiness, like everybody
else. They were going a little too much; they were creating too much unhappiness and they were
becoming neurotic. We bring them back to the normal neurosis of humanity.” Freud says, ”Man can
never be happy. Man can only be either neurotically unhappy or normally unhappy, but man can
never be happy.”
As far as ordinary humanity is concerned, his diagnosis seems to be exactly right, but he is not
aware of a Buddha or a Tilopa; he is not aware of those who have achieved a total, blissful state of
being. And it is as it should be, because a buddha will not go to be treated by Freud – for what?
Only hysterical persons come to Freud, and then he treats them. And his whole knowledge, his
whole experience, is of hysterically neurotic people. He has not known a single individual, in his
whole forty years’ experience with patients, who is happy. So he is right, empirical. His experience
shows that there are only two types of people: normally unhappy and hysterically unhappy. And at
the most we can help this much: we can make you more adjusted.
Mantra, psychoanalysis, religion, morality, churches, prayers – they have all been used to make you
adjusted. And the real religion starts only when you start on a journey of transformation; not to be
adjusted to the society, but to be in harmony with the cosmos. To be adjusted to the society you
have to fall down.
It happens many times that a madman has nothing wrong in him. The madman is simply too much of
an energy and he cannot adjust himself to the society – he goes astray. A madman is too much of an
individual; a madman is too talented in certain things that he cannot get adjusted to the society. And
you must remember all geniuses always remain maladjusted in the society, and out of one hundred
geniuses, almost eighty percent always have a trip to the madhouse. They have to, because they
go beyond society. They have much more than ordinary society allows.
The ordinary society is like a paperweight on you: it won’t allow you to fly. A genius throws away the
paperweight and would like to be on the wing and go to the farthest corner of the sky. The moment
you go beyond the line of the society, the boundary, you are mad. And the whole society tries to
readjust you.
Tantra says readjustment, adjustment, is not the goal; it is not worth much – transformation is the
goal. What to do? Don’t try tricks to be readjusted – mantra is a trick. If you are feeling that you
cannot sleep, then don’t try to find sleep through a mantra. Rather, on the contrary, try to find what
the restlessness is that is causing you sleeplessness. You may be desiring too much, you may be
too ambitious. Your ambition won’t allow you to sleep, your restlessness continues, your desiring
mind goes on and on and on, and the thinking process continues. That’s why you cannot sleep.
Now there are two ways: one is of mantra and the other is of tantra.
Mantra says: don’t bother about the causes; you simply repeat a mantra and fall asleep. This is
so superficial. Don’t bother about the causes, just repeat a mantra – fifteen minutes in the morning
and fifteen in the evening – and you will be able to sleep; and you will feel good and you will feel
healthy. But even if you feel good and healthy, what will happen out of it? There are many healthy
people who sleep beautifully, but nothing has happened to them – the ultimate blooming has not
come. Health is good in itself, but cannot be the goal. To sleep is good, but cannot be the goal.
Tantra says find out the causes of why you are restless.
A minister in the Indian government used to come to me. He was always worried about his sleep,
and he would say, ”Just give me some technique so that I can sleep.” But I told him, ”A politician
cannot sleep – that is not possible. A politician is not meant to sleep, he is not expected to sleep.
That is good, and I am not going to give you any technique. You go to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, he
will give you a technique without asking why.” And in fact he went.
Then he came after three months. He said, ”You suggested and it worked! Now it is beautiful,
now I can sleep.” Then I told him, ”Whenever you need, and you feel that sleep is not enough, that
awakening is needed, then come to me – because you can sleep, but what will happen out of it?
You will remain the same; in the morning you will again be on the same ambitious trip. You may
think something good has happened, but only one thing has happened: now you will not be aware
of the causes; they have been forced by the mantra into the deeper unconscious, and the possibility
of transformation has been postponed.”
I cannot give you better sleep. I would like to give you better awakening, better awareness.
A politician is continuously desiring, fighting, competing, jealous, trying to reach higher and higher
in the hierarchy. In the end nothing is achieved.
Mulla Nasruddin worked his whole life in politics and went to the highest post possible. Then I asked
him, ”What have you attained?” He said, ”To be frank, I’m the greatest ladder climber in the world.
That is my achievement: the greatest ladder climber.” But even if you reach the highest rung of
the ladder, what then? Your presidents and prime ministers have reached, they are the greatest
ladder climbers – but ladder climbing is not life. And just going on and on climbing bigger and bigger
ladders, what is the point of it?
Ambition creates restlessness. I would like you to understand your ambition. Desiring creates
restlessness. I would like you to be aware of your desiring. This is the way of tantra. And when the
cause disappears, the disease disappears. And if the cause disappears, then you are transformed.
The disease is just a symptom – don’t try to hide the symptom; let it be there, it is good, because it
goes on poking, goes on hitting you and saying that something is wrong. If you cannot sleep, it is
good because it shows that something is wrong in your very style of life.
I am not going to help you to attain better sleep. I will say: Try to understand, this is a symptom. This
symptom is a friend, it is not an enemy. It is simply showing that deep down in your unconscious
there are undercurrents which won’t allow you to sleep. Understand them, absorb them, go through
them, transcend them – and then there will be a deep sleep; not because you have forced the
symptom underground, but because the disease has disappeared. And in that ”sleepness” a totally
different quality of consciousness comes into existence. Then you can be deeply asleep and still
alert. It is not hypnosis then, it is not like a drunk state, it is not through a drug. And all mantras are
drugs; very subtle, but still drugs. Don’t become a drug-addict.
Says Tilopa:
THE PRACTICE OF MANTRA AND PARAMITA, INSTRUCTION IN THE SUTRAS AND PRECEPTS, AND TEACHING FROM THE SCHOOLS AND SCRIPTURES, WILL NOT BRING REALIZATION OF THE INNATE TRUTH.
PARAMITA is a Buddhist word; it means compassion, serving the people. Whatsoever the Christian
missionaries are doing all over the world is paramita. Serve! Help! Sympathize! Be compassionate!
But Tilopa says that will also not help.
I have also observed – I know many people who are social reformers, great servants of society;
their whole life they have devoted and sacrificed for the uplift of people – but no transformation has
happened to them. It cannot happen, because serving the people, serving the society, becomes an
occupation; they become occupied.
In fact, if the society is suddenly transformed by a divine miracle, and there is no beggar to be served,
no poor man to be served, no ill person, no hospitals, no mad people – suddenly, if this happens,
can you conceive what will happen to your great servants of the society? They will commit suicide!
Not finding anybody to serve, what will they do? They will simply be at a loss. What will happen
to Christian missionaries? If there is nobody to be converted and forced and led and seduced to
their path, converted; if everybody becomes Christian, what will they do? Where will they go on
their great missions? They will have to commit suicide. If the revolution really happens, what will be
the fate of your revolutionaries? What will they do? Suddenly out of job, unemployed, they will start
praying to God: ”Bring back the old society – we need lepers to serve, we need beggars to help.”
You can be occupied either in your own business, or you can be occupied with other people, but
the mind needs occupation. The mind needs that you should forget yourself and be occupied with
something. This is an escape from the innate truth. And Tilopa says these are not the ways.
Tantra has a very very beautiful thing to say to you, and that is: First, before you start serving
anybody else, be absolutely selfish. How can you serve anybody else unless you have attained your
inner being first? Be absolutely selfish! If your own inner light is burning you may be able to help
others; otherwise your service will be a mischief. And the world is so much in mischief because of
so many revolutionaries, so many social reformers, so many self-appointed servants. They create
mischief, they create chaos; it is natural because they have not attained to their own truth and they
have started helping others. If you have a light within, you may share your light with somebody else,
but if you don’t have it how can you share it? How can you share that which you don’t have?
A man came to Buddha – he must have been a very very great revolutionary, like Marcuse or others
– and he asked Buddha, ”Tell me how I can serve others. I have a deep compassion in me and
I would like to make everybody happy.” Buddha looked at him. It is said he became sad; Buddha
became sad looking at him. The man said, ”Why have you become so sad?” Buddha said, ”It is
difficult because you yourself don’t seem to be happy and you are on a mission to make everybody
happy. How can you share that which you don’t have?”
First you be; and once you are then it is not a mission. Once you are blissful, then you don’t go out of
your way to help others – your very being is a help wherever you are; you don’t make it a profession.
The way you are, wherever you are... if you sit near a tree, you help the tree. Not consciously, not
with any effort on your part, just being near the tree, and the tree responds and your inner being
flows into the tree, and the tree flows into you – and you have awakened a tree. Some day this
tree will become a buddha and you will be a part in it, you participated in it; and when this tree will
become a buddha and the whole universe will celebrate, you will also celebrate – a part of you, you
have given to the tree, you have shared.
You sit by a river and you share; you move, your very movement becomes your compassion – it is
nothing to be done. If you DO, something is wrong. How can you ”do” love? It is not an act, it is a
state of being. You are in love, you have the light, and your doors are open; then whosoever wants
to come in, into the inner shrine of your being, is invited. And whosoever wants to light his own light
from your source of light, you are ready.
You never go and seek somebody to help. When you go, one thing is certain, you are not the right
person. When you start doing something, one thing is certain, you are creating a mischief. You will
simply poke your nose into others’ affairs. Let them be themselves. It is enough compassion on
your side that you don’t disturb them. Don’t try to change them. You don’t know what you are doing.
Only one who is enlightened can help: the help flows spontaneously. It is just like a flower has
bloomed – and the winds take the fragrance and they spread it all over the earth. It is very subtle
and indirect; it never hits anybody directly. A real master never tries to change anybody directly; he
is like a subtle fragrance, he surrounds you. If you are open, a little whiff will enter in you. If you are
not open, he will wait at the door; he will not even knock, because that may also disturb your sleep.
It is your sleep, you have all the right to sleep as long as you want; it is nobody’s business to awaken
you.
I may have become awakened; I may like you to be awakened, but that is my thing, not your thing.
If you are fast asleep and dreaming beautiful dreams, who am I to disturb you? I will wait. I will
surround you like a fragrance. And if that fragrance catches you, and if that fragrance brings you out
of your sleep, it is okay. But it is not a direct effort, it is very very indirect. And always remember:
only those people who are absolutely indirect can be of any help. Direct help is from the politician,
indirect help is from the sage.
... INSTRUCTION IN THE SUTRAS AND PRECEPTS, AND TEACHING FROM THE SCHOOLS
AND SCRIPTURES, WILL NOT BRING THE REALIZATION OF THE INNATE TRUTH.
Why? – because it is already there. It has not to be brought in. You are seeking something which
you have already there inside you in its total beauty and perfection. Nothing has to be done. Doing
is absolutely irrelevant. You have just to come back home. The guest is already there, but the host
is out – you are not inside. Through your desires you are moving more out and more out and more
out. You would like to have a big house and a big car, and this and that, and you are moving out
more and more. You have no time to come back home.
Meditation is nothing but coming back home, just to have a little rest inside. It is not the chanting
of a mantra, it is not even a prayer; it is just coming back home and having a little rest. Not going
anywhere is meditation, just being where you are; there is no other ”where” – just being there where
you are, just occupying only that space where you are. Desire takes you on long journeys in time
and space – and desire never brings you to your home; it always takes you somewhere else.
FOR IF THE MIND WHEN FILLED WITH SOME DESIRE SHOULD SEEK A GOAL, IT ONLY HIDES
THE LIGHT.
That’s how you are missing – by going out you are missing, by seeking you are missing, by searching
you are missing, by trying to get it you are missing. Nothing is needed on your part – the divine has
given all that can be given to you. You are not sent as a beggar into the world, you are sent as
emperors. Just have a look inside. Just in some moments don’t go anywhere, desireless, not
thinking of the future, not thinking of the past, just remaining here and now, and suddenly it is there
– it has been always there – and you start laughing.
When Lin Chi was asked that when he attained enlightenment what he did, that was the first thing he
did, he said, ”What can one do? I laughed and asked for a cup of tea. I laughed! What was I doing?
– seeking something which was already there.” All the buddhas have laughed, and all the buddhas
have asked for a cup of tea – because what else to do? It is already there. You were unnecessarily
running here and there; tired, you have come back home. A cup of tea is exactly the right thing.
FOR IF THE MIND WHEN FILLED WITH SOME DESIRE SHOULD SEEK A GOAL, IT ONLY HIDES
THE LIGHT.
Your seeking creates a smoke around the flame. You go on running around and around, you stir
much dust, and you create much smoke, and it is your own effort that stirs the dust and creates the
smoke, and the flame becomes hidden. Rest a little, let the dust settle back to the earth. And if you
are not running very fast, not in a hurry, you will not create smoke. By and by, things settle and the
inner light is revealed.
This is the most fundamental thing in tantra, that it says that you are already perfect. No other vision
says that. They say you have to achieve it; they say you have to go, you have to struggle, and you
have to do many things and the path is arduous; and it is very very rarely that somebody reaches
because the goal is very very distant; and for millions of lives one has to try, and then one reaches;
perfection has to be achieved. Tantra says this is the reason why you are not achieving. Perfection
has not to be achieved. It has to be simply realized that it is there.
Tantra offers you enlightenment right here and now – no time, no postponement. Tantra says if you
rest, just resting will help, because by your restlessness you are creating the smoke all around, and
you are in such a hurry you cannot listen. If somebody says, ”Rest,” you will say, ”There is no time
to rest. I have to achieve a goal and the goal is very far. And if I rest I will miss.” Tantra says you are
missing because you are running. Tantra says you are missing because you are in such a hurry.
HE WHO KEEPS TANTRIC PRECEPTS, YET DISCRIMINATES, BETRAYS THE SPIRIT OF
SAMAYA. CEASE ALL ACTIVITY, ABANDON ALL DESIRE, LET THOUGHTS RISE AND FALL
AS THEY WILL LIKE OCEAN WAVES. HE WHO NEVER HARMS THE NON-ABIDING, NOR THE
PRINCIPLE OF NON-DISTINCTION, UPHOLDS THE TANTRIC PRECEPTS.
Very, very simple. But you are too complex, you are too puzzled inside; otherwise everything is very
very easy.
CEASE ALL ACTIVITY, ABANDON ALL DESIRE, LET THOUGHTS RISE AND FALL AS THEY
WILL LIKE OCEAN WAVES.
What does one do? If you go to the ocean you simply sit on the shore, on the beach, and you watch.
The waves rise and fall, and there is a tide and there is an ebb; the ocean passes through many
moods. What do you do? You simply sit and watch. Exactly is the case with the mind; it is also like
an ocean – waves arise and fall. Sometimes there is a tide and much turmoil, and sometimes it is
an ebb, and you feel a little silent.
In fact it is the case: the whole consciousness is like an ocean. And your mind is not only yours: your
mind is part of the collective mind; all around you is the ocean of consciousness. Just like fishes in
the ocean, you are fishes in the consciousness – in and out, this side and that, above and below,
the ocean and the ocean waves. Who are you to disturb it? And who are you to make it quiet and
silent? And how can you do it?
So whenever a person becomes too interested and eager to calm down the mind, he creates many
troubles for himself. It is not possible! And when you try some impossibility, you get frustrated. Then
you think of a thousand and one causes why it is not happening. The simple fact is it cannot happen!
Tantra says, ”Watch it! It is none of your business that thoughts come and go. They come on their
own accord, they go on their accord. Why do you get involved in them? Who are you to calm them
down? They don’t belong to you; they belong to the vast ocean that surrounds you. You were not
there, and they were. You will not be one day, and they will remain.”
Now science accords with this: every thought is a wave. That’s why a radio can broadcast thoughts.
They pass through walls and hills and your bodies, and nothing hinders them. Something is
broadcast in New York and you hear it here. Now scientists suspect that the possibility is there
that soon we may be able to catch thoughts from the past, because thoughts never die. It may
be possible some day to catch Tilopa saying to Naropa, ”Because of you... that which cannot be
uttered, but because of your trust, I will say it.” It is possible because thoughts never die. This thought
of Tilopa must be somewhere near some star. If we can catch it.... Science may be capable to some
day, because when a thought is broadcast from New York, it takes time to reach Poona; it takes a
few seconds, but it takes time. It travels, it will go on traveling; it will leave this earth, it will go on
traveling. It will reach in a few million years some star – if we can catch it there, you can listen to it
again.
Thoughts are an ocean all around you, they exist without you – you just be a witness. So tantra says:
Accept them! The tide comes, it is beautiful; the ebb comes, it is beautiful. Big, strong waves trying
to reach to the sky; tremendous energy – watch it! Then comes a calm ocean, everything subsided,
and the moon reflects in it, beautiful – watch it. And if you can watch you will become absolutely
silent. The thoughts may go on coming to the beach, scattering on the rocks; you will remain calm
and quiet; they will not affect you.
So the real problem is not thoughts, but being affected. Don’t fight with the thoughts, simply become
a witness and you are not affected. And it is a richer silence, remember, and tantra is always for
richer experiences. There is a possibility of creating a dead silence, a silence that you find on the
cemetery. You can force your mind so much that the whole nervous system becomes paralyzed.
Then there will be no thoughts, because a very delicate nerve system is needed to receive them.
The ocean will be there but you will not be receptive, your receptivity will be lost.
That is what is happening to many yogis, so-called yogis. They go on dulling their nervous systems.
They eat less so that no energy moves to the brain. In fasting the energy cannot move to the brain,
the body needs it first. They live in such a way that, by and by, their whole brain system becomes
paralyzed, numb: sitting in one posture, monotonous; repeating a mantra, monotonous. If you
continuously repeat a mantra for a few years, of course the system becomes dull, because no new
sensations enter, the vitality is lost.
In fact this man has not become silent – this man has become more stupid. And you will have the
stupid look on many yogis’ faces. You will not see the intelligence, you will see something dull, dead;
a stone-like thing has happened. They have not attained to silence – they have lost their brains.
They have lost their receptivity, they have dulled themselves completely, they are dead. Nothing
happens to them inside because for anything to happen a very delicate nervous system is needed
– very delicate, very receptive, sensitive.
So this should be the criterion: if you see on the face of a yogi the radiance, the intelligence,
awareness, sensitivity, as if something has flowered within, he is fulfilled – then only silence has
happened. Otherwise, one can be silent – stupid people are, idiots are perfectly silent, because
they cannot think – but what type of silence is this?
An idiot is not a yogi. An idiot is simply born in such a way that his brain system is not functioning.
You can do it with your own brain system by fasting, by yoga postures; you can stand on your head
for hours – that will do. SHIRSHASAN is perfect: you stand on your head for hours – that will make
your nervous system dead, because your brain exists if very very minute energy and blood reaches
to it, because the nerves are so delicate, so small, fragile. You cannot conceive because with the
bare eye they cannot be seen. Your hair seems to be very thin, it is nothing. A nerve in the brain
is just like the hair... if you put ten thousand nerves one on top of another, then they will be of the
thickness of the hair. So if blood goes fast, it simply destroys them; it is like a flood.
Man attained to this brain, and no animal has attained, because man stood on the feet – that’s why
the blood cannot go to the head, it is against the gravitation. The gravitation goes on pulling the
blood downwards, and a very very minute part of the blood reaches to the head. That’s why that
subtle system can exist. Animals cannot have it because they move on all fours and their brain
remains on the same level as their body. If you stand on your head, you do shirshasan, for a single
minute it may be good, or even for a single second it may be good, because it just gives a bath; just
the blood reaches, and by the time it reaches you are back to your normal posture: and it cleanses.
But if you do shirshasan for minutes together or hours together, it will kill your whole brain-system.
The flood is too much, the brain cannot exist.
And yogis have found many ways to destroy the brain. Once it is destroyed you cannot see the
ocean – but the ocean is there, thoughts are there. It is just like if your radio has gone out of order.
Don’t think that broadcasts are not passing from this room, they are passing, but your receiving
mechanism is not functioning. Start the radio, put it on – immediately it starts catching them.
The brain is just like a receiving center; if you destroy it you will be silent, but that silence is not of
tantra. And I don’t teach that silence – that is death. It is good in the cemetery, you are not going
anywhere through it – you are wasting your life. And a very subtle instrument which can make you
perfectly intelligent, an instrument which can become so perceptive that you can enjoy the whole
celebration of existence, you have destroyed. More sensitivity is needed, more poetry is needed.
More life, more beauty, everything more is needed.
What will you do then? Attain to tantra silence. Watch the waves, and the more you watch, the more
you will be able to see the beauty of them. The more you watch, the more subtle nuances of thought
will be revealed to you. And it is beautiful – but you remain the witness. You remain on the beach;
you just sit on the beach, or lie down in the sun, and just let the ocean do its own work – you don’t
interfere.
If you don’t interfere, by and by, by and by, the ocean doesn’t affect you. It goes on roaring all
around, but it doesn’t penetrate you. It is beautiful in itself, but it is separate, a distance exists. That
distance is real meditation, the real silence.
The world goes on and on, you are not affected; you remain in the world, but you are not in the
world; you remain in the world, but the world is not in you. You pass through the world, untouched,
unscarred. You remain virgin. Whatsoever you do, whatsoever happens to you, makes no difference:
your virginity remains perfect, your innocence remains absolute, your purity is not destroyed.
HE WHO KEEPS TANTRIC PRECEPTS, YET DISCRIMINATES, BETRAYS THE SPIRIT OF
SAMAYA.
And, says Tilopa, if you are trying to keep the tantra path, the tantra precepts, then remember, don’t
discriminate. If you discriminate you may be a tantra philosopher, but not a tantra follower. Don’t
discriminate. Don’t say this is good and that is bad. Drop all discrimination. Accept everything as itmis.
CEASE ALL ACTIVITY, ABANDON ALL DESIRE,
rest in yourself, come back home;
LET THOUGHTS RISE AND FALL AS THEY WILL LIKE OCEAN WAVES. HE WHO NEVER
HARMS THE NON-ABIDING, NOR THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-DISTINCTION, UPHOLDS THE
TANTRIC PRECEPTS.
One who never harms the principle of non-distinction, who never discriminates, he follows the right
path. And
... WHO NEVER HARMS THE NON-ABIDING.
This is one of the most beautiful tantra things: tantra says remain homeless, don’t abide anywhere,
don’t get identified and don’t cling to anything. Remain homeless, because in homelessness you
will attain to your real home. If you start getting... abiding in this and that, you will miss the home.
Don’t cling to anybody, to anything, to any relationship. Enjoy, but don’t cling. Enjoyment is not a
problem; once you start clinging, once the clinging mind comes in, then you are not flowing, then a
block has come in. Don’t abide anywhere, then you will abide in yourself. Don’t cling to anything,
only then you will be able to rest in yourself.
So two principles are very basic: don’t harm the principle of non-abiding, and don’t harm the principle
of non-distinction.
HE WHO ABANDONS CRAVING AND CLINGS NOT TO THIS AND THAT, PERCEIVES THE REAL
MEANING GIVEN IN THE SCRIPTURES.
Through scriptures you cannot attain to truth. But if you attain to truth, you will understand the
scriptures. Scriptures are nothing but witnesses, they bear witness. You cannot learn the truth
from them, but once you know the truth, they will bear witness. All the scriptures of the world
will say, ”Yes, you have attained.” This is what truth is. Scriptures come from persons who have
attained. Whatsoever their language and symbology, whatsoever their metaphor, once you attain
you penetrate through all metaphors, symbology, all languages.
People ask me, ”What are you doing here? Sometimes you talk on tantra and Tilopa, and sometimes
you talk on yoga and Patanjali, and sometimes you talk on Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, the taoists
and the tao, and sometimes you jump to Heraclitus and Jesus – what are you doing here?” I am
talking about the same thing. I am not talking about anything else. Heraclitus or Tilopa or Buddha
or Jesus, makes no difference to me. I am talking myself. They are just excuses – because once
you attain, you fulfill all scriptures of the world. Then there is no Hindu scripture, Jewish scripture,
Christian scripture; then suddenly you become the culmination of all the scriptures.
I am a Christian, a Hindu, a Jew, a Mohammedan, because I am no one. And the truth, once
known, is beyond all scriptures. All scriptures indicate towards it, the scriptures are nothing but
fingers pointing to the moon. Fingers may be millions – the moon is the same. Once you know, you
have known all.
Through scriptures you will become sectarians: you will be a Christian because you cling to the
BIBLE; you will be a Mohammedan if you cling to the KORAN; you will be a Hindu if you cling to
the GITA – but you will not be religious. Religiousness happens only when the truth has happened
to you. Then you don’t cling to anything, and all the scriptures start clinging to you. Then you
don’t follow anybody, and all the scriptures follow you, they become like your shadows. And all the
scriptures are the same because they talk about the same. Their metaphors, of course, are different,
their languages are different, but the experience is the same.
Says Buddha, ”You taste the ocean from anywhere, you will always find it salty.” You taste it from
the KORAN, or from the BIBLE, or from the TORAH, or the TALMUD, the taste is always the same.
Scriptures cannot lead you. In fact, they are dead without you. When you achieve to truth, life
suddenly comes to all the scriptures. Through you they become again alive, through you they are
reborn.
That is what I am doing, giving rebirth to Tilopa. He has been dead for many hundreds of years.
Nobody has talked about him, nobody has given him again a birth. I am giving him a rebirth. While
I am here, he will be again alive. You can meet him if you are capable. He is again near here. If you
are receptive, you can feel his footsteps. He is again materialized.
Through me – I will give birth to all the scriptures. Through me, they can again come to this world, I
can become an anchor. That’s what I am doing. And that’s what I would like you to do in your own
life, some day. When you realize, when you come to know, then bring all that is beautiful in the past
back and give it rebirth, renew it, so that all those who have known can be again on the earth and
travel here, and help people.
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| Osho Tantra _ The Supreme Understanding |
15 February 1975 am in Buddha Hall
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