Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-10

Not answers, no questions

Question 1

IS IT A VERY GOOD SIGN THAT ONE HAS NO QUESTIONS TO ASK?

If really it happens that you have no questions to ask, it is a tremendous phenomenon. It is one of the most beautiful _ states of mind; because when there are no questions, that nonquestioning consciousness is the answer to all questions. Not that you get the answers, but, simply, questions dissolve. The mind becomes nontense, because each question is a tension, is a worry; it is an anxiety.

And no answer is going to solve the question. The questioning mind is the problem, not the question. Your question can be answered, but from the answer your questioning mind will create a thousand and one more questions; you will reduce every answer into many more questions. It never helps. It helps only when all questions drop, when consciousness transcends questioning, when you understand that there is nothing to be asked, nothing to be answered.

Life is a mystery, not a problem -- you cannot ask anything about it. If it really happens, this is samadhi. This is what my whole effort is all about. You should come to a point where no question arises. In that silence, in that total beatitude, in that peace, you are transformed: all anxiety, anguish, disappears.

But the question is if it is real, because you may not be asking questions and questions are there; then it is of no use. Then it is better to ask. If questions are in the mind and you don't ask, then you feel shy, that won't help. It is better to ask and be finished with them. Not that by asking you will get the answers -- nobody has got the answer -- nobody ever had it -- nobody will ever have it. The answer is impossible because life is a mystery. It cannot be solved. The more you solve it, the more you find that it is impossible to solve it. But by questioning, by and by, you become aware of the futility of questioning.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-09

The law is for you

32. PURITY, CONTENTMENT, AUSTERITY, SELF-STUDY, AND SURRENDER TO GOD ARE THE LAWS TO BE OBSERVED.

33. WHEN THE MIND IS DISTURBED BY WRONG THOUGHTS, PONDER ON THE OPPOSITES.

34. IT IS NECESSARY TO PONDER ON THE OPPOSITES BECAUSE WRONG THOUGHTS, EMOTIONS, AND ACTIONS, SUCH AS VIOLENCE, RESULT IN IGNORANCE AND INTENSE MISERY WHETHER THEY BE PERFORMED, CAUSED, OR APPROVED THROUGH GREED, ANGER, OR DELUSION IN MILD, MEDIUM, OR INTENSE DEGREES.

THERE are laws, and laws: laws to suppress man, laws to help him bloom; laws to Prohibit, restrict, and laws to help him expand, increase. A law which simply prohibits is destructive; a law that helps to grow and increase is creative. The Old Testament Ten Commandments are different from Patanjali's laws. Those ten commandments prohibit, restrict, suppress. The whole emphasis is: you should not do this, you must not do this, this is not allowed. Patanjali's laws are totally different; they are creative. The emphasis is not on what should not be done; the emphasis is on what should be done. And there is a vast difference between the two.

In the Old Testament it seems as if the laws are the goal -- as if man exists for them, not that they exist for man. For Patanjali there is a utility in the laws, but they are not ultimate or absolute in any sense. Man doesn't exist for them; they exist for man. They are means, and one has to go through them -- and go beyond them. That has to be remembered; otherwise you can carry a wrong impression about Patanjali.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-08

Male mind, female mind, no-mind

Question 1

LISTENING TO YOU MORNING AFTER MORNING, I FEEL OVERSATURATED WITH THE THOUGHT OF NEEDING TO LOOK INWARDS AND SEE. IN FACT I FEEL LIKE A DOG CHASING HIS OWN TAIL: THE HARDER HE TRIES, THE LESS HE HAS A CHANCE OF SUCCESS.

BUT GIVING UP TRYING HAS NOT HELPED MUCH EITHER, BECAUSE BEING MORE ALERT AND AWARE IS TURNING OUT TO BE ANOTHER SUBTLE DOING, AND I AM BACK IN THE SAME RUT.

THIS is good, that you are becoming aware that neither doing can help nor nondoing, because your nondoing is a subtle doing. With this awareness a new door will open any day, any moment. When you neither do nor not-do, when you are simply there, when you are a being -- not a doer or a nondoer, because a nondoer is also a doer -- the duality disappears. Then suddenly you find you have always been in the home, you have never left it -- you had never gone out anywhere else. Then the dog realizes there is no need to chase the tail, the tail belongs to him already. There is no need to chase the tail because the tail follows the dog already. But one has to do to reach to nondoing. Then one has to do the nondoing to reach being. And everything helps. Even failures, frustrations -- everything helps. Finally, when you reach, you understand that everything helped -- going astray, falling into old ruts and traps -- everything helped; nothing goes useless. And everything becomes a step to another.

Just yesterday I was reading an article from Swami Agehananda Bharti. He relates that once he asked Ravishankar how well George Harrison plays the sitar.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-07

Death and discipline

30. SELF-RESTRAINT, THE FIRST STEP OF YOGA, IS COMPRISED OF THE FOLLOWING FIVE VOWS: NONVIOLENCE, TRUTHFULNESS, HONESTY, SEXUAL CONTINENCE, AND NONPOSSESSIVENESS.

31. THESE FIVE VOWS, WHICH CONSTITUTE THE GREAT VOW, EXTEND TO ALL THE SEVEN STAGES OF ENLIGHTENMENT REGARDLESS OF CLASS, PLACE, TIME, OR CIRCUMSTANCE.

THE five vows of ahimsa, satya, achaurya, brahmacharya, aparigra, are the very base, the foundation. They have to be understood as deeply as possible because there is a possibility to move without fulfilling these five steps which constitute the first step of yam.

You can find yogis and fakirs all over the world who have moved without fulfilling these five steps of the first step. Then they become powerful, but their power is violent. Then they are very, very powerful, but their power is not spiritual. Then they become sort of black magicians; they can harm others. Power is dangerous; it can help, it can harm. Not only to others is it dangerous, it is dangerous to the person himself. It can destroy you; it can give you a rebirth. It depends. These five vows are just a guarantee so that the power which arises out of discipline is not misused.

You can see "yogis" displaying their power. That is impossible for a yogi, because if the yogi has really fulfilled these five vows he will no longer be an exhibitionist; he cannot display. He can no longer try to play with miracles -- that is not possible for him. Miracles happen around him, but he is not the doer.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-06

Does the universe love me?

Question 1

WHAT IS YOUR PATH, THE PATH THAT YOU REVEAL TO US?

IT is not a path at all; you are not to travel it. Rather, it is a simple understanding.

You have to stop all travelling. A path is to travel and to go somewhere; a path is to reach somewhere, to attain something; a path is a means and the end is far away in the future. That's what I mean when I say whatsoever I am talking to you about is not a path; it is a simple understanding. If you understand, you have already reached to the goal. If you understand, you have always been in the goal, never for a single moment have you been away from it. You may have been dreaming that you have gone away, but you have not left your home for a single moment.

This is a no-path. Or, if you insist for the word, or if you are so fascinated with the word, call it a pathless path. But try to understand me: this is not a path. I am giving you not the means but the end itself.

Question 2

SINCE COMING TO YOU, LIVING A MEDITATIVE LIFE HAS BECOME AN EASIER AND MORE NATURAL PHENOMENON. HOWEVER, I HAVE PRACTICALLY GIVEN UP ALL HOPE FOR ENLIGHTENMENT ARE THESE TENDENCIES CONTRADICTORY?

Not at all. To attain to enlightenment that is a must -- that you should lose all hope and desire for it. Otherwise the desire for enlightenment becomes a nightmare in itself. And the more you desire it, the further away you are from it - - greater the desire, greater will be the distance. Drop all desiring for it, all hoping for it. If you have really become desireless about enlightenment, any moment it is possible to happen. Give space; don't be filled with the desire for it.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-05

The eight limbs of yoga

28. BY PRACTISING THE DIFFERENT STEPS OF YOGA FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF IMPURITY, THERE ARISES SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION WHICH DEVELOPS INTO AWARENESS OF REALITY.

29. THE EIGHT STEPS OF YOGA ARE: SELF-RESTRAINT, FIXED OBSERVANCE, POSTURE, BREATH REGULATION, ABSTRACTION, CONCENTRATION, CONTEMPLATION AND TRANCE.

THE light that you seek is within you. So the search is going to be an inward search. It is not a journey to some goal in the outer space; it is a journey in the inner space. You have to reach your core. That which you are seeking is already within you. You just have to peel the onion: layers and layers of ignorance are there. The diamond is hidden in the mud; the diamond is not to be created. The diamond is already there -- -only the layers of mud have to be removed.

This is very basic to understand: the treasure is already there. Maybe you don't have the key. The key has to be found, but not the treasure. This is basic, very radical, because the whole effort will depend on this understanding. If the treasure has to be created. then it is going to be a very long process; and nobody can be certain whether it can be created or not. Only the key has to be found. The treasure is there, just nearby. A few layers of locks have to be removed.

That's why the search for truth is negative. It is not a positive search. You are not to add something to your being; rather you have to delete something. You have to cut something from you. The search for truth is surgical. It is not medical; it is surgical. Nothing is to be added to you; rather on the contrary, something has to be removed from you, negated. Hence, the method of the Upanishads: neti, neti.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-04

Because you are buddhas

Question 1

YOU SAY ONE CAN TAKE A JUMP FOR QUICK ATTAINMENT OF ENLIGHTENMENT. IS IT POSSIBLE? ENLIGHTENMENT MEANS GOING UPWARD, ISN'T IT? BUT A JUMP CAN ONLY BE TAKEN IF WE WANT TO GO DOWNWARD, LIKE JUMPING FROM A MULTISTORIED MANSION ONTO THE GROUND. HOW CAN ONE JUMP FROM THE GROUND TO THE TOP OF THE MANSION? ONE CAN ONLY GO UPWARD, ASCENDING SOMETHING. PLEASE EXPLAIN.

YOU miss the whole point, and you miss it in the analogy. Enlightenment is "going nowhere," neither upward nor downward. Enlightenment is to be where you are -- right now, this very moment. It is not a going; it is being. You don t go anywhere in enlightenment. Buddha is not going, climbing, to the Everest. You go inward; and that dimension of inwardness is neither upward nor downward.

It doesn't belong to the upward or the downward; those are the outer directions.

Inside, you are exactly where you are. Enlightenment is not going, but being -- being totally still. Hence, the jump is possible.

You are true. If it is going upward, how can you jump? In fact, even if it is going downward, to jump from the Everest will be simple stupidity. You will die. No, it is neither downward nor upward. You simply close yourself from all directions. You by and by settle within.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-03

Awareness, not knowledge

25. THE DISASSOCIATION OF THE SEER AND THE SEEN WHICH IS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE DISPERSION OF IGNORANCE IS THE REMEDY THAT BRINGS LIBERATION.

26. THE UNWAVERING PRACTICE OF DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN WHAT IS THE REAL AND WHAT IS THE UNREAL BRINGS ABOUT THE DISPERSION OF IGNORANCE.

27. THE HIGHEST STAGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT IS REACHED IN SEVEN STEPS.

THE state of ignorance is the cause of all delusions, of all unrealities, of all appearances, but to know more is not the state of knowledge. Ignorance is the cause, but knowledge is not the remedy -- knowledge in the sense of knowledgeability. You can know more and more and more, but you remain the same. Knowledge becomes an addiction. You go on adding it. but the being to which you add it remains the same. You know more, but you are not more.

And the root cause of ignorance can be dissolved only when you are more, when your being is stronger, when your being is powerful, when your being has awakened. The root cause of all suffering is ignorance, but knowledge is not the remedy -- awakening is the remedy.

If you don't understand this subtle distinction, first, you are lost in ignorance, and then you will be lost -- and lost more so -- in knowledge. In the Upanishads there is one of the most radical statements ever uttered. The statement is that in ignorance people are lost, but in knowledge they are lost in a deeper way.

Ignorance misguides, knowledge misguides more.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-02

Where did we come from and how did we

Question 1

HOW DOES A BUDDHA PARTICIPATE TOTALLY IN DAY-TO-DAY LIFE?

THERE is no "how" to it. When you are alert no "how" is needed. When you are awakened you act spontaneously, not with a plan in the mind, because now there exists no mind at all. A Buddha responds -- moment to moment.

Whatsoever the situation demands, with no plan, no idea how to act, with no technique he simply responds. His response is like an echo: you go to the hills, you make noise, and the hills echo it. Have you ever asked how the hills echo?

They respond. When you play on a sitar has the sitar any "how"? You may be having technique and things in the mind -- what to play, what to sing -- but the sitar? It simply responds to your fingers.

A Buddha is a nothingness. You come around him; he responds. Remember the word "responds": it is not a reaction; it is a response. When you react you have an idea in the mind -- how. what. When you react you react from a position. If you come to a Buddha he does not react from any position; he has none. He has no prejudice, no opinion, no ideology. He responds. He responds to the situation.

One day a man came and asked, "Does God exist?" Buddha looked at him and said, "No." And the same day. in the afternoon. another man came. He asked.

"Does God exist?" Buddha looked into him and said, "Yes." And the same day, in the evening, a third man came. He asked, "Does God exist?" and Buddha remained quiet; he didn't answer.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 5 Chapter-01

The bridegroom is waiting for you

18. THE SEEN WHICH IS COMPOSED OF THE ELEMENTS AND THE SENSE ORGANS IS OF THE NATURE OF STABILITY, ACTION, AND INERTIA, AND IS FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING EXPERIENCE AND THUS LIBERATION TO THE SEER.

19. THE THREE GUNAS -- STABILITY, ACTION, AND INERTIA -- HAVE FOUR STAGES: THE DEFINED, THE UNDEFINED, THE INDICATED, AND THE UNMANIFEST.

20. THE SEER, ALTHOUGH PURE CONSCIOUSNESS, SEES THROUGH THE DISTORTIONS OF THE MIND.

21. THE SEEN EXISTS FOR THE SEER ALONE.

22. ALTHOUGH THE SEEN IS DEAD TO HIM WHO HAS ATTAINED LIBERATION, IT IS ALIVE TO OTHERS BECAUSE IT IS COMMON TO ALL.

23. THE SEER AND THE SEEN COME TOGETHER SO THAT THE REAL NATURE OF EACH MAY BE REALIZED.

24. THE CAUSE OF THIS UNION IS IGNORANCE.

THE scientific mind used to think that there is a possibility of impersonal knowledge. In fact that used to be precisely the definition of the scientific attitude. By "impersonal knowledge" it is meant that the knower can remain just a spectator. His participation is not needed. Not only that, but if he participates in the known, the very participation makes the knowledge unscientific. The

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-10

The alchemy of celebration

The first question:

THE MORE I WATCH MYSELF, THE MORE I EXPERIENCE THE FALSENESS OF MY EGO. I HAVE STARTED TO FEEL LIKE A STRANGER TO MYSELF, NO LONGER KNOWING WHAT IS FALSE. THIS LEAVES ME WITH AN UNCOMFORTABLE FEELING OF HAVING NO GUIDELINES, AS I SENSED I HAD BEFORE.

THIS happens; this is bound to happen. And remember that one should be happy that it has happened. It is a good indication. When one starts on the inner journey everything seems to be clear, rooted; because the ego is in control and the ego has all the guidelines, the ego has all the maps, the ego is the master.

When you move a little further into the journey, the ego starts evaporating, seems to be more and more false, seems to be more and more a deception, a hallucination. One starts awakening out of the dream, then guidelines are lost.

Now the old master is no more the master, and the new master has not yet arisen. There is a confusion, a chaos. This is a good indication. Half the journey is over, but there will be an uncomfortable feeling, an uneasiness, because you feel lost, a stranger to yourself, not knowing who you are. Before, you knew who you were: your name, your form, your address, your bank balance -- everything was certain, this was you. You had an identification with the ego. Now the ego is evaporating, the old house is falling and you don't know who you are, where you are. Everything is murky, cloudy, and the old certainty is lost.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-09

The seer is not the seen

15. THE DISCRIMINATING PERSON REALIZES THAT EVERYTHING LEADS TO MISERY BECAUSE OF CHANGE, ANXIETY, PAST EXPERIENCE, AND THE CONFLICTS THAT ARISE BETWEEN THE THREE ATTRIBUTES AND THE FIVE MODIFICATIONS OF THE MIND.

16. FUTURE MISERY IS TO BE AVOIDED.

17. THE LINK BETWEEN THE SEER AND THE SEEN THAT CREATES MISERY, IS TO BE BROKEN.

LIFE IS a mystery, and the first mysterious thing about life is that you can be alive and you may not have life at all. Just being born is not enough to have life.

To be born is just an opportunity. You can use it to have life, and you can miss it also. Then you will live a dead life. Only apparently will it look like life, but deep down there will be no alive current in you.

Life has to be attained, one has to work for it. It is like a seed in you: it needs much effort, soil, right soil, care, love, awareness. Only then does the seed sprout. Only then is there the possibility that someday the tree will bear fruit, someday it will flower. Unless you reach to the state of flowering you are alive just in name, but you have missed the opportunity. Unless life becomes a celebration, it is not life at all.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-08

The psychology of the buddhas

The first question:

YOU SAID THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO DEVELOP THE THIRD TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BUDDHAS, BUT WHERE WILL YOU GET BUDDHAS FOR STUDY?

TO BEGIN with, one is already here, and sooner or later he will turn many of you into Buddhas. If one is there, many become immediately possible because the one can work as a catalytic agent. Not that he will do something, but just because he is there things start moving on their own. That's the meaning of a catalytic agent. Sooner or later, many of you will turn into Buddhas, because everyone is basically a Buddha. How long can you delay in recognizing it? How long can you postpone it? Difficult -- you will try your best to postpone, to delay, to create millions of difficulties, but how long can you do this?

I am here to push you somehow into the abyss, where you die and the Buddha is born. The problem is always in finding the one. Once the one is there the basic fulfillment, the basic requirement is fulfilled. Then many become immediately possible. And if many are there, then thousands become possible. The first works like a spark, and a small spark is enough to burn the whole earth. This is how it has happened in the past. Once Gautam became a Buddha, thousands by and by had to become. Because it is not a question of becoming; you are already that.

Somebody has to remind you, that's all.

Just the other day I was reading one of Ramakrishna's parables. I love it. I read it again and again whenever I come across it. It is the whole story of the Master being a catalytic agent.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-07

Awareness: the fire that burns the past

12. WHETHER FULFILLED IN THE PRESENT OR THE FUTURE, KARMIC EXPERIENCES HAVE THEIR ROOTS IN THE FIVE AFFLICTIONS.

13. AS LONG AS THE ROOTS REMAIN, KARMA IS FULFILLED IN REBIRTH THROUGH CLASS, SPAN OF LIFE, AND TYPES OF EXPERIENCES.

14. VIRTUE BRINGS PLEASURE; VICE BRINGS PAIN.

MAN APPEARS to be in the present, but that is only an appearance. Man lives in the past. Through the present he passes, but he remains rooted in the past. The pre, sent is not really time for the ordinary consciousness. For the ordinary consciousness, the past is real time, the present just a passage from the past to the future, just a momentary passage. The past is real and the future also, but the present is unreal for the ordinary consciousness. Future is nothing but the past ex, tended. Future is nothing but the past projected again and again.

The present seems to be non-existential. If you think of the present, you will not find it at all because the moment you find it, it has already passed. Just a moment before when you had not found it, it was in the future. For a Buddha- consciousness, for an awakened being, only the present is existential. For ordinary consciousness, unaware, sleepy like a somnambulist, the past and future are real, the present is unreal. Only when one awakes is the present real; the past and future both become unreal.

Why is this so? Why do you live in the past? -- because mind is nothing but an accumulation of the past. Mind is memory: all that you have done, all that you have dreamed, all that you wanted to do and could not do, all that you have imagined in the past, is your mind. Mind is a dead entity. If you look through the mind, you will never find the present, because the present is life, and life can never be approached through a dead medium. Life can never be approached through dead vehicles. Life cannot be touched through death.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-06

The existentialist cul-de-sac

The first question:

PATANJALI SAYS, 'DO NOT CLING TO LIFE,' AND THIS IS EASY TO UNDER STAND AND FOLLOW. BUT HE ALSO SAYS, 'DO NOT LUST FOR LIFE.' ARE WE NOT TO ENJOY IN THE PRESENT ALL THAT NATURE HAS TO OFFER US: FOOD, LOVE, BEAUTY, SEX ETC? AND IF THIS IS SO, IS IT NOT LUST FOR LIFE?

PATANJALI SAYS that lust for life is a barrier, a barrier to enjoying life, a barrier to being really alive, because lust is always for the future; it is never for the present. He is not against enjoyment. When you are in the moment enjoying something, there is no lust in it. Lust is a hankering for the future, and this has to be understood.

People who are not enjoying their lives in the present have lust for life in the future. Lust for life is always in the future. It is a postponement. They are saying, 'We cannot enjoy today so we will enjoy tomorrow.' They are saying, 'Right this moment we cannot celebrate, so let there be a tomorrow so that we can celebrate.'

Future arises out of your misery, not out of your celebration. A really celebrating person has no future; he lives this moment, he lives it totally. Out of that total living arises the next moment, but it is not out of any lust. Of course, when out of celebration the next moment arises, it has more capacity to bless you. When out of celebration the future arises, it goes on becoming more and more rich. A moment comes when the moment is so total, so whole, that time completely disappears.

Time is a need of the miserable mind. Time is a creation of misery. If you are happy there is no time -- time disappears.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-05

Prati-prasav: the primal of the ancients

9. FLOWING THROUGH LIFE IS THE FEAR OF DEATH, THE CLINGING TO LIFE, AND IT IS DOMINANT IN ALL, EVEN THE LEARNED.

10. THE SOURCES OF THE FIVE AFFLICTIONS CAN BE ABOLISHED BY RESOLVING THEM BACKWARDS TO THEIR ORIGIN.

11. THE OUTWARD EXPRESSIONS OF THE FIVE AFFLICTIONS DISAPPEAR THROUGH MEDITATION.

LIFE SEEMS to be an endless chain of miseries. From birth to death one suffers and suffers; still one wants to live. One continues to cling to life.

Albert Camus has said somewhere, and very rightly, 'The only metaphysical problem is suicide.' Why don't you commit suicide? If life is such a misery, such a hopeless affair, why don't you commit suicide? Why be at all? Why not not be?

Deep down, this is the real philosophical problem. But nobody wants to die.

Even people who commit suicide, commit suicide in hope that by committing suicide they will get to a better life, but clinging to life remains. Even with death, they are hoping.

I have heard about one Greek philosopher who taught his disciples nothing else but suicide. Of course, nobody ever followed him. People listened; he was a very articulate man. Even while listening to him about suicide -- it looked beautiful, worth listening to -- nobody followed him. He himself lived to the very ripe age of ninety. He himself didn't commit suicide. While on his death-bed, somebody asked, 'You taught continuously about suicide. Why have you yourself not committed it?' The old, dying philosopher opened his eyes and said, 'I had to be here just to teach people.'

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-04

To become free in an unfree society

The first question:

ARISING OUT OF ONE OF YOUR ANSWERS THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY, I FELT YOU DIDN'T GIVE SUFFICIENT VALUE TO WESTERN MAN FOR THE USE OF THE DREAM AS ONE OF THE MEANS TO CONSCIOUSNESS. I'M THINKING PARTICULARLY OF JUNG'S TECHNIQUES IN HIS PSYCHOLOGY OF SELF REALIZATION.

YES, I don't give much value to Freud, Jung, Adler, or Assagioli. Freud, Jung, Adler, and others, are just children playing on the sand of time. They have gathered beautiful pebbles, beautiful colored stones, but when you look at the ultimate, they are just children playing with pebbles and stones. Those stones are not real diamonds. And whatsoever they have gained is very, very primitive.

You will have to go slowly with me to understand.

Man can be physically ill; then the physician, the doctor is needed. Man can be psychologically ill; then a little help can be given by Freud and Jung and others.

But when man is existentially ill, neither a physician nor a psychiatrist can be of any help. Existential illness is spiritual. It is neither of the body nor of the mind, it is of the total -- and the total transcends all parts. The total is not just a composition, a composition of the parts. It is something beyond the parts. It is something that holds all the parts into itself. It is a transcendence.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-03

Sleep, identification, duality

5. LACK OF AWARENESS IS TAKING THE TRANSIENT FOR THE ETERNAL, THE IMPURE FOR THE PURE, THE PAINFUL AS PLEASURABLE AND THE NON-SELF FOR THE SELF.

6. EGOISM IS THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE SEER WITH THE SEEN.

7. ATTRACTION, AND THROUGH IT, ATTACHMENT, IS TOWARDS ANYTHING THAT BRINGS PLEASURE.

8. REPULSION IS FROM ANYTHING THAT CAUSES PAIN.

WHAT IS AVIDYA? The word means ignorance, but avidya is not ordinary ignorance. It has to be understood deeply. Ignorance is lack of knowledge.

Avidya is not lack of knowledge but lack of awareness. Ignorance can be dissolved very easily; you can acquire know ledge. It is only a question of training the memory. Knowledge is mechanical; no awareness is needed. It is as mechanical as ordinary ignorance. Avidya is lack of awareness. One has to move towards more and more consciousness, not towards more and more knowledge.

Only then can avidya be dissolved.

Avidya is what Gurdjieff used to call 'the spiritual sleep'. Man moves, lives, dies, not knowing why he was alive, not knowing from where he was coming, not knowing where he was moving, for what. Gurdjieff calls it sleep, Patanjali calls it avidya: they mean the same thing. You don't know why you are. You don't know the purpose of your being here in this world, in this body, in these experiences.

You do many things without knowing why you are doing them, without knowing that you are doing them, without knowing that you are the doer.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-02

You are already that....

The first question:

YOU SAID YESTERDAY THAT SURRENDER HAPPENS WHEN THERE IS NO EGO, BUT WE ARE WITH EGOS. HOW CAN WE MOVE TOWARDS SURRENDER?

THE EGO is you. You cannot move towards surrender; in fact you are the barrier, so whatsoever you do will be wrong. You cannot do anything about it.

You simply, without doing anything, have to be aware. This is an inner mechanism: whatsoever you do is done by the ego, and whenever you don't do anything and remain just a witness, the non ego part of you starts functioning.

The witness is the non-ego within you and the doer is the ego. The ego cannot exist without doing anything. Even if you do something to surrender, it will strengthen the ego and your surrender will become again a very subtle egoistic standpoint. You will say, 'I have surrendered.' You will claim surrender, and if somebody says that it is not true, you will feel angry, hurt. The ego is now there trying to surrender. The ego can do anything; the only thing that the ego cannot do is non doing, witnessing.

So just sit silently, watch the doer, and don't try in any way to manipulate it. The moment you start manipulating, the ego has come back. Nothing can be done about it; one has just to be a witness to the misery that ego creates, of the false pleasures and gratifications that ego promises. Doings in this world and doings in the other world; the spiritual world, the Divine, the material, whatsoever the realm, the doer will re main the ego. You are not supposed to do anything and if you start doing something you will miss the whole point. Just be there, watch, understand, and don't do. Don't ask, 'How to drop the ego?' Who will drop it?

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 4 Chapter-01

The seeds of misery

1. KRIYA-YOGA IS A PRACTICAL, PRELIMINARY YOGA, AND IT IS COMPOSED OF AUSTERITY, SELF-STUDY AND SURRENDER TO GOD.

2. THE PRACTICE OF KRIYA-YOGA REDUCES MISERY, AND LEADS TOWARDS SAMADHI.

3. MISERIES ARE CAUSED BY: LACK OF AWARENESS, EGOISM, ATTRACTIONS, REPULSIONS, CLINGING TO LIFE AND FEAR OF DEATH.

4. WHETHER THEY BE IN THE STATES OF DORMANCY, ATTENUATION, ALTERATION OR EXPANSION, IT IS THROUGH LACK OF AWARENESS THAT THE OTHER CAUSES OF MISERY ARE ABLE TO OPERATE.

THE ORDINARY humanity can be divided into two basic types: one is the sadist and the other the masochist. The sadist enjoys torturing others, and the masochist enjoys torturing himself. The sadist is of course attracted towards politics. There, there is the possibility, the opportunity to torture others. Or, he is attracted towards scientific research, particularly medical research. There, there is the possibility in the name of experiment, to torture innocent animals, patients, dead and alive bodies. If politics is too much and he is not so certain about himself, or not intelligent enough to move into research, then the sadist becomes a schoolmaster; he tortures small children. But the sadist always moves, knowingly or unknowingly, towards a situation where he can torture. In the name of country, in the name of nation, society, revolution, in the name of truth, discovery, in the name of reformation, of reforming others, the sadist is always in search of an opportunity to torture someone.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 3 Chapter-10

The consistency of being

The first question:

WHAT HAPPENED TO RAJNEESH ON MARCH 21ST? DID HE ATTAIN SAMADHI WITH OR WITHOUT SEED? 

THIS IS NOT ONLY your question, this is mine also! Ever since, I have also been wondering what happened to this guy Rajneesh. On that night, one moment he was there, and next moment he was not there.

And since then I have been looking for him within and without: not even a trace has been left behind, no footprints. If ever I get him, I will remember your question. Or, if it happens that you come across him somewhere, you can ask the question from my side also.

It is just like a dream. In the morning you are awake, you look around, you search for the dream in the sheets of the bed, under the bed, and it is not there. You cannot believe - just a moment before it was there, so colorful, so real, and suddenly it is not found at all, and there is no way to find it. It only appeared; it was not a reality, it was just a dream. One is awake and the dream has disappeared. Nothing happens to the dream.

To Rajneesh also, nothing happened; it was never there in the first place. I was asleep, that's why he was there. I awoke and I couldn't find him, and it happened so unexpectedly there was no time to ask the question. Simply the guy disappeared, and there seems to be no possibility to find him again, because there is only one possibility: if I fall asleep again, only then I can find him - and that is impossible.

Once you are totally conscious, the very root of being unconscious is cut. The seed is burned. Again you cannot fall into the unconscious.

Yoga : The Alpha and the Omega Volume - 3 Chapter-09

The fall of the idiots

IN THE STATE OF NIRVICHARA SAMADHI, AN OBJECT IS EXPERIENCED IN ITS FULL PERSPECTIVE, BECAUSE IN THIS STATE KNOWLEDGE IS GAINED DIRECT, WITHOUT THE USE OF THE SENSES. 

THE PERCEPTION GAINED IN NIRVICHARA SAMADHI TRANSCENDS ALL NORMAL PERCEPTIONS BOTH IN EXTENT AND INTENSITY. 

WHEN THIS CONTROLLING OF ALL OTHER CONTROLS IS TRANSCENDED, THE SEEDLESS SAMADHI IS ATTAINED, AND WITH IT, FREEDOM FROM LIFE AND DEATH. 

KNOWLEDGE IS indirect, knowing is direct. Knowledge is through many mediums; it is not reliable. Knowing is immediate, without any medium. Only knowing can be reliable.

This distinction has to be remembered. Knowledge is like a messenger comes and tells something to you: the messenger may have misunderstood the message; the messenger may have added something of his own into the message; the messenger may have dropped something from the message; the messenger may have forgotten something from the message; the messenger may have added his own interpretations into it, or the messenger may be simply cunning and deceptive. And you have to rely on the messenger. You don't have any direct approach to the source of the message - this is knowledge.

Knowledge is not reliable, and not only one messenger is involved in knowledge, but four. Man is behind many closed doors, imprisoned. First knowledge comes to the senses; then the senses carry it through the nervous system, it reaches to the brain, and then the brain delivers it to the mind, and then the mind delivers it to you, to the consciousness. It is a vast process, and you don't have any direct approach to the source of knowledge.