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.