1/08/07

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The Sound of One Hand Clapping Talks given from 01/3/81 to 31/3/81

Darshan Diary

23 Chapters

Year published:

Unpublished

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The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #1

Chapter title: None

1 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103015

ShortTitle: CLAPP01

Audio:

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Video:

No

mind is just the opposite of meditation it is the closing of the heart meditation is the opening of the heart man can live through the mind but then life will not have any significance any poetry, any song, any music it will be trivial, mundane, superficial ultimately frustrating

a sheer wastage of a great opportunity a very ungrateful way to live because god gives us such an opportunity to grow and we only accumulate the non-essential money, power, prestige

there is a famous book by napoleon hill: Grow Rich that is not a way to grow

that is a way to remain retarded but that's what has become the philosophy of the common man all over the world everybody is interested in the very superficial the reason is that the door to the divine is closed and the door to the mundane is open our schools, colleges and universities are in the service of the society they are agents, their function is to close the heart and to open the head

my work here is to reclaim the heart once the heart starts opening your life becomes a celebration mind divides you from existence 1/08/07

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gives you the idea of an ego the heart unites

gives you the idea of oneness with the whole and to feel one with the whole is the ultimate in joy there is no higher joy

it is the ultimate in love there is nothing higher than it it is the ultimate truth itself because it brings harmony, all conflict disappears life becomes a rhythm

a rhythm

that goes on deepening every moment the zen people call it

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

now there are not two

the music is there but it is not a struck music when you play on the sitar two things are needed the instrument is needed and you are needed you have to strike the strings, it is basically a conflict and out of conflict

only mundane music can be born there is another world of music, another dimension in India we have called it anahat nad unstruck music

the player and the played-upon are no more two the musician has become the music the dancer has become the dance that is

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

the rose cannot become a rose because its whole effort is diverted into becoming a lotus

and a lotus it can never become in fact there is no need

if god wanted the rose to become a lotus he would have created a lotus he has created enough lotuses just the other day i was reading 1/08/07

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if god wanted homosexuality he would have created adam and bruce he didn't

it is so plain

but people are trying to improve upon god he has made everybody what he wanted so the best thing is to discover who am i

once you know who you are

suddenly all perfectionism disappears because you find you are perfect there is no need to be perfect just as you are, you are perfect it happens only through meditation because meditation

is simply settling into your centre relaxing, resting in your being, to discover who am i?

that very discovery is the only true spirituality all else is mumbo-jumbo

once it is heard

all that is worth hearing has been heard one can think about truth but that is not seeking it is like a blind man thinking about light he can go on thinking for eternity just by thinking about and about he is not going to find light the word about is beautiful it means around and around he goes around in circles, never touching the centre and that is the way of the mind of philosophy, of theology of all kinds of thinking

it happens only through meditation because meditation is simply settling into your centre relaxing.

resting in your being, to discover the seeker of truth has to stop thinking he has to be utterly silent, in a state of no-thought the whole energy that is involved in thinking has to be released from thinking so that it becomes awareness 1/08/07

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it is the same energy: you can use it as thought you can use it as awareness we don't have many energies we have only one energy

but there are different manifestations of the same energy

meditation is not using your energy as thinking but using your energy as awareness just being silent -- watching, waiting, seeing the more you become a seer, the less a thinker the closer you are to the truth, to the light the moment your seeing is absolute you have arrived home

meditation is an inward journey on the outside there are challenges there are adventures

but they are nothing compared to the inner challenges and inner adventures there are enemies on the outside but the inner enemies are far bigger only one thing is different, and that is that the inner enemies are our own creation so the moment we decide to destroy them in that very moment they can be destroyed they are our make-believe

mind, ego, greed, anger, jealousy, possessiveness all these enemies are there but we have been feeding them, nourishing them we can chop off their heads in a single blow a whole army can be uprooted in a single moment of insight and that's what meditation is a moment of insight in which you can see how you have been creating your own enemies and that very seeing

becomes the death of all your enemies one reaches to the ultimate truth by using these inner enemies as stepping stones of course only their corpses can be used as stepping stones while they are alive they will create trouble they will pull your legs in every direction they will not easily give way hence just fighting won't help understanding is the key

try to understand the inner enemies 1/08/07

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and a miracle happens

any enemy totally understood evaporates in that very understanding try to understand jealousy and it is no more try to understand the ego and it is no more understanding functions like a light you bring the light into the dark room and darkness is no more

meditation is a bridge between you and the whole mind is a wall between you and the whole and the same bricks are being used you can make a bridge

you can make a wall

sannyas means

dismantling the wall and using the same bricks in creating a bridge

it is a simple phenomenon

it is not as difficult as people have been told the people who have been saying that it is difficult are basically on ego trips themselves of course if it is difficult and you have attained it only then can your attainment be ego-fulfilling so the so-called saints

have been trying to say to people that it is very arduous, that it is almost impossible that only very rare people after lives of effort and virtue attain to it and that too only by god's grace not only you and your effort are going to make it unless god wills it so... god willing that is a necessary condition to it and who knows when he will will it whether he will or not?

these so-called saints

have been trying to prove to humanity that meditation is very difficult that is the only way to pretend that they are holier-than-thou that they have attained

and you are lives away from that attainment all that you can do is worship them my approach is totally different meditation is the most simple phenomenon in life there is nothing holy about it there is nothing special about it 1/08/07

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it is just a small understanding the same bricks have to be used but arranged in a different way of course and it becomes a bridge

thoughts have the same energy as the state of no-thought desires have the same energy lust has the same energy as love there is no fundamental difference only the manifestation, the form, has to be changed and that can be easily done if i have been able to do it then anybody can do it

because you cannot find

a more unholy man in the world meditation makes you aware of your kingdom of god

it is always there

you have never lost it

it is just that you are not looking at it you are looking outwards and it is inwards you are keeping it at your back it is always there, it cannot go anywhere it follows you like your shadow or even more than that

because your shadow disappears in darkness but your inner kingdom is always with you in your misery

in your dark nights of the soul even if you go to hell it is with you it is your intrinsic nature but because we don't look at it we remain beggars everybody is moving with a begging bowl and the moment you turn inwards --

a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn --

suddenly the begging bowl drops from your hands the moment you see what inexhaustible treasures are given to you from the very beginning all desires disappear of their own accord religions have been telling people just the opposite they have been telling people to first become desireless then they will attain the kingdom of god that is putting everything upside-down 1/08/07

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that is putting the horses behind the cart neither the cart can move nor the horses can move all movement stops

it is just a wrong arrangement one cannot drop desiring unless one finds the inexhaustible treasures of one's being so my statement is just the opposite i say forget all about desiring, it is natural the begging bowl is bound to be there because you don't know

that you are a king or a queen so first become acquainted with your nature then it is up to you

if you still want to carry the begging bowl it is perfectly okay

but i have never heard

of anybody carrying a begging bowl once he has seen his infinite treasures so i don't say become desireless then you will become a master i say be a master and you will become desireless desirelessness will be a consequence, a by-product hence my insistence on meditation because that is the art of turning around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees you can stand in the sun with closed eyes the sun cannot force your eyes to open existence is very non-violent it never shouts

it only whispers

it never knocks on your doors it simply stands there

it waits, it has patience

it trusts that one day, sooner or later you will open the door

you will open your eyes and you will see the light meditation means opening your eyes opening your doors

to see the light that is always there once you have seen it

your whole being is transformed illuminated, enlightened

because suddenly you recognize that you are not separate from the source of light 1/08/07

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that It Is the same light

that they are both joined together that feeling of being one with the source of light brings immense freedom

fearlessness, desirelessness and after that experience whatsoever you do is right hence I don't give you any commandments do this, don't do this -- no shoulds, no should-nots i don't give you any discipline i only give you a simple call to open your eyes and to see the light

and after that

it is impossible to do anything wrong then a self-discipline comes of its own accord and when discipline comes of its own accord it has a beauty of its own it has a spontaneity, it has joyfulness it has a dancing quality in it it is festive, playful, innocent, unpretending it does not make you a saint it simply makes you very simple extraordinarily ordinary

meditation is the discovery of the perfect centre within ourselves the moralists, the priests the politicians, the puritans all kinds of so-called leaders of humanity have been teaching people for thousands of years to be perfect

they have driven almost everybody crazy they have created a great fever for perfectionism, and perfectionism

is the fundamental source of all neurosis once a person becomes obsessed with being perfect he is a goner

i don't tell anybody to be perfect perfection is not something that you have to attain it is your nature

it has not to be attained but only discovered and the methods of attainment and discovery are totally different

the method of attainment is cultivation become more perfect, become more perfect go on improving

go on dropping flaws, errors, mistakes go on polishing your ego

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the method of discovery is not of cultivation it is becoming silent

so that you can feel

who you are

before one tries to be perfect one should know who am i? where do i stand?

what is my nature?

if without knowing that you are a marigold you start trying to be a perfect rose you will go crazy

to become perfect roses

roses have the desire to become perfect lotuses this is how the whole world goes on becoming more and more cuckoo everybody is chasing something which is not his nature

so all that happens is that the marigold cannot become a marigold

and it cannot become a rose either so there is simply misery

every man, every woman, every tree every bird, every flower

has its own uniqueness

it is incomparable

but we are continuously taught to compare this is how the society creates a hierarchy somebody is superior to you somebody is inferior to you of course with the inferior you behave in one way with the superior in another way you are constantly trying

to rise higher in the hierarchy and you are constantly preventing others from rising higher than you this is our whole unnecessary life our whole mess, confusion, chaos and all depends on a simple thing the idea of comparison

comparison brings competition comparison brings wounds and ego on the one hand wounds

because there are people who are superior to you and wounds are bound to be and on the other hand it brings ego because there are people who are inferior to you and you are crushed between these two rocks 1/08/07

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and the whole thing is invented you are simply yourself

you don't belong to any hierarchy nobody is higher than you

and nobody is lower than you because nobody is like you hence comparison is impossible and competition is futile

one has just to be oneself that's my basic message

the moment you accept yourself as you are all burdens, all mountainous burdens simply disappear

then life is a sheer joy

a festival of lights

this discovery of one's uniqueness happens only when you become a little silent calm and quiet

and you drop out of all those imposed ideas which the society has been throwing upon you from the very childhood

these do-gooders

they may be parents, they may be teachers they may be priests...

and i don't suspect their intentions their intentions are good

but they are unconscious people and unconscious peoples' good intentions also bring bad results

they may like you, they may love you they may desire for you a beautiful life but they have lived in ugliness they have lived in suffering they can only impart their suffering to you they will teach you the same strategies that they have followed

they will teach you the same ideas that they have lived by

they will give their lifestyle to you and they are enough proof

that their lifestyle has been an utter failure but still they will go on giving you the same thing each generation gives its diseases to the other generation

generations die, diseases seem to be immortal people come and go but diseases remain and if you decide to get out of that bondage they feel betrayed

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they would like you to just repeat their life although they have been miserable so i don't suspect their intentions but intentions don't mean anything at all all that has significance is consciousness not unconscious good intentions --

and there are very few people who are conscious to be in tune with a conscious person is to be a disciple

to be a sannyasin

a conscious person can help you to discover yourself

he does not impose anything upon you he does not programme you

he simply deprogrammes you and leaves you open, available, a clean slate so you can make your own signature you can write your own song and you can dance your own dance and the greatest experience in life is the experience of one's uniqueness meditation is not something serious it is a very very long tradition that says meditation is very serious --

it is not

it is very playful

it is closer to song than to anything else closer to dance than anything else closer to love than anything else meditation cannot be serious by its very nature seriousness is part of the mind playfulness is part of the heart.

and meditation means slipping out of the head and entering into the heart it is getting out of the serious affairs of life into an attitude of playfulness the head is old

the heart is always new, fresh like dewdrops in the early morning sun as fresh as new roses opening as fresh as the stars in the night it is not old like the old testament it is not old like the ancient vedas it is very young like a just-born baby 1/08/07

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with fresh eyes

unburdened, uncluttered, with no dust a mirror

so that has to be remembered being here with me simply means being playful

non-serious

joyous

i don't teach renunciation i teach rejoicing

and the more you rejoice

the more you become capable of receiving new gifts from the divine

the more you are playful

the more god is with you

the more you are fresh, young, alive the more stars come down towards you they start filtering into your very being they start reaching your very heart the serious person is a dead person he has already committed suicide he will live

but his life will be only a kind of vegetation he will be a cabbage, a cauliflower, a potato but these people have become saints in the past remember...

saint potato, saint cauliflower very serious people

look at a potato

you will never find a potato non-serious so beware of seriousness

it is the greatest sin

live your life as fun

and that is the greatest virtue The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #2

Chapter title: None

2 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium 1/08/07

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Archive code: 8103025

ShortTitle: CLAPP02

Audio:

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the mind is doubt -- every mind, mind as such hence nobody should think that he is without doubt because whatsoever is done through the mind is bound to be doubt-full

even the so-called beliefs are nothing but cover-ups for doubt one believes so that one can escape from doubt doubt is like a wound

but belief is not a healing force it only covers the wound

it deceives others but that is not very significant it deceives you -- that is of real importance to live in self-deception

is to miss the whole point of life there are only two ways to deal with doubt you can cover up your doubt with belief millions of people all over the world have been doing that for millions of years doubt remains and goes on growing like a cancerous thing

the other way is to go into your doubt rather than hiding, deceiving encounter it, face it, dig it and that is the way to transcend it if one encounters one's doubt one can immediately see

that one is separate from one's doubts they are there like objects, you are here the mirror that reflects them the awareness that encounters them this very experience takes you beyond doubt that is the state of faith, of trust and that is the beginning of sannyas desiring includes all desires --

the worldly, the other-worldly material, the spiritual

the mundane, the sacred

so it is not a question of choosing either one drops the whole of desiring 1/08/07

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or one remains in the grip of it the so-called religious people are still in the grip of it they may not desire money

but they desire meditation they may not desire power

but they desire god

they may not desire things of the world but they desire the kingdom of the beyond it is the same desire

it has come in from the backdoor again you have to be very watchful not to allow desire in any form to enter you because desire is bondage, desire is misery, desire is hell the more full of desires one is the more frustrations one is breeding because each desire will end in frustration whether it succeeds or fails makes no difference frustration is bound to happen, it is inevitable

if the desire fails

and out of one hundred desires ninety-nine are bound to fail because it is a competitive world you are not alone

many people are desiring the same things there are not enough things and people are many things are scarce and people are millions how many people can be presidents how many people can be prime ministers very few... but everybody wants to be hence ninety-nine per cent of desires are bound to fail, and then there will be great frustration one per cent of desires may succeed but frustration comes all the same in fact more so

because when a desire succeeds for the first time you become aware that you have wasted your whole life for it and nothing is attained

money is there

but your poverty remains untouched by it your inner emptiness remains the same in fact

in contrast with the money that you have achieved 1/08/07

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your inner emptiness

looks even emptier than before you have attained power outside but deep inside you know you are impotent impotent in the face of death one has to die, no power can save one so whether a desire succeeds or fails it fails all the same

this is one of the most fundamental truths to be understood

once you see the point

then you don't go on changing horses because they are all the same the black horse and the white horse, devil and god it doesn't make much difference it is just the difference between a black horse and a white horse they will all lead you into misery then one simply gets out of the whole trip one forgets desiring, one starts living desiring is always somewhere else the fulfilment is in the future living

is now

here

these are the only two ways to create a style of life

living in the future

which is only so-called living because the future is non-existential and living in the present

which is the only way

of living, authentic living time consists only of two tenses, not of three ordinarily it is divided into three parts the past, the present and the future that is existentially wrong grammatically it may be right linguistically it may be right but i have no concern with language and grammar my concern is with existence as far as existence is concerned time only consists of past and future the present is not part of time it is part of existence

existence is always now, it is never then 1/08/07

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it is never yesterday, never tomorrow it is this very moment

and to go beyond time

is the whole art of meditation meditation is the transcendence of time past and future both

and the plunging into the now, the here.

the deeper you plunge into the now and the here the more you disappear

because mind cannot exist without past and future mind is like a pendulum of a clock it moves from one opposite to the other from right to left, from left to right stop it in the middle and the clock stops mind moves between past and future the clock of the mind

stop it in the middle and the clock stops and the moment the mind is not there you are not

then god is

then freedom is

then love is

then flowering is

then eternity is

there are many boundaries around us we are the centre of many concentric circles and we have to go beyond

all those concentric circles only then can we find the centre the most important concentric circles are four the first is the world of objects the majority of people

is concerned with the world of objects money, power, prestige, respectability they remain very peripheral presidents, prime ministers queens, rotarians, lions

you will find all Kinds of stupid people hanging onto the very outermost circumference and making much fuss about it the second concentric circle is of the body many live in the body, particularly women man hangs onto the first more, the most peripheral his concern is more about things, objects far-away objects

what is happening in israel 1/08/07

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and what is happening in korea the woman is not so concerned about korea and israel

she is most concerned about the colour of her hair, her eyelashes the proportion of her body she looks at the male as being a little bit crazy you are unnecessarily worried about the stars and the speed of light what have you to do with it the real thing is the furniture the curtains, the pillows

the kitchen, the bathroom

it looks more mundane to man it looks more earthly

but in a way she is closer but many men also remain there they have to because their wives are there their girlfriends are there they cannot go to israel

they cannot go to the moon they cannot go to everest

they are possessed by their women they won't allow them to

so they also have to be just very close near the kitchen, the bathroom maybe the woman looks at the mirror and they clean the mirror

but they are not very far either millions of people

simply live at the physiological, the biological the chemical level of life closer than that is another concentric circle that of the mind: thoughts, ideas philosophers, theologians, thinkers, scientists these people live there

closer than that

is the concentric circle of the heart the poets, the painters

the musicians, the dancers the aesthetic people live there but all are outside your real being one has to transcend all these four boundaries only then does one encounter oneself then for the first time

one stands face-to-face to oneself 1/08/07

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and that is the moment of great illumination when you see your centre

you have seen all that is worth seeing you have seen god himself

you have seen the truth

there is nothing higher than that nothing deeper than that

nothing more valuable than that sannyas is the transcendence of all boundaries so that one day you can simply relax in your very centre that centre is consciousness awareness

godliness

life is one energy

but out of that one energy we can either create love or attachment love is heaven, attachment is hell we can create out of that energy bondage or freedom

it all depends on us

on how we work upon our energy the lower is cheaper and easier to create hell does not need much intelligence it does not even need courage all that it needs is imitation because millions of people are doing the same thing all around you you can just imitate them

your parents, your teachers, your leaders it is simple

you will become a carbon copy you will live in the same kind of hell misery, anguish

and you will give to your children, your heritage and they will repeat the same pattern this way it goes on and on from adam and eve up to you it has been going on in the same way only very few people

have been able to get out of the rut and those are the salt of the earth a jesus, a buddha, a lao tzu a zarathustra, a kabir -- very few people they can be counted on one's fingers they are real miracles in existence 1/08/07

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because to get out of the rut of the crowd is really a great act

of courage, intelligence, rebellion the crowd lives in attachment attachment to money

attachment to children

attachment to parents

attachment to wives, husbands attachment to this and that there are thousands of attachments and they think it is love

because they think it is love they cannot get out of it

so the first thing is to label things correctly to categorise things correctly attachment is love standing upside-down attachment is love gone sour attachment is an ill state of love love is a healthy phenomenon attachment is sick, nauseating and everybody experiences it the more you become attached, the more miserable the more you allow others

to become attached to you

the more miserable they become and of course

we become infected with each other's misery and it is never a simple addition it is always multiplication a sannyasin has to learn

what the causes of his misery are and you will find

one of the most significant causes is attachment don't be attached to anything live

live totally, live lovingly but don't possess, don't dominate and don't allow anybody

to possess or dominate you if you want to be really blissful and if you are blissful you can share love love is a sharing of bliss attachment is a sharing of misery it is ugly, it is inhuman

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love brings freedom to you and also freedom to the person you love let that be the criterion

if it brings freedom it is love if it brings bondage it is attachment attachment has to be dropped and love has to be grown

the more loving you become the closer you are to god

jesus is right when he says god is love

man lives in words

the words can be beautiful but they are all empty the word god is not god

the word love is not love either you cannot be nourished by the word food and you cannot quench your thirst with the word water

words are dangerous

they can keep you in deception they can give you the feeling as if you know millions of people think they know god because they know the word millions of people think they know love because they know the word a sannyasin has to get beyond words to the real content

he has to disperse words

and to see what is hidden behind them that's the exploration

just as one goes on peeling an onion one has to go on peeling words so one can come to the very core of them and the miracle is

when you go on peeling words like an onion ultimately you come to emptiness, nothingness is the ultimate sense of existence that is silence

when all noise of the words has left you and there is only profound silence 1/08/07

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undisturbed, undistracted

in that silence knowing happens seeing happens, being happens bibles, korans, gitas cannot give it to you --

they are all words, they are beautiful they were spoken by beautiful people but that does not make any difference even if buddha says the word rose it does not become a rose

even if jesus says the word fire it does not become fire

but beautiful people can be so hypnotic that you start believing in their words christians, hindus, mohammedans, buddhists are all doing the same

they have all forgotten the reality and are clinging to the labels they are all clinging to the cages maybe they are golden cages but the bird, the alive bird, the singing bird is no more there

the search of sannyas

is for the alive, the singing bird man has two alternatives

two possible orientations

one is character, the other is consciousness character is imposed from the outside it is a political and social strategy to dominate the person

consciousness is individual, character is social all societies are against consciousness and for character

because they can manipulate character it is within their grasp

they can paint it

according to their own investment they can cut you into shape to fit with their mechanism they can make you obedient through it they can make you a slave

and that is the desire

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of all the establishment

but the real master

never gives you character

he gives you consciousness consciousness is a discovery of your own being no discipline is imposed on you in fact all discipline is disposed of you are allowed to be yourself, authentically as god means you to be

one has to discover one's nature one's spontaneity, one's original face that is consciousness

the very discovery

makes you more and more conscious the deeper you go into it

the more conscious you become a point comes when you are just a flame of light and in that light whatsoever you do is right in that light

wrong is impossible and right is inevitable then a totally different kind of character comes like a shadow following consciousness i call that character religious, spiritual the so-called character in the world is just political, social

it has no value at all

so go beyond the ordinary character so that you can find the real character and the way to find the real is through consciousness

the master cannot say anything about truth truth is inexpressible

it is beyond all indications it cannot even be pointed at because it is not an object -- it is all over so when you point at it in a direction you are already falsifying because it is not in one direction it is the whole space

no gesture is capable of capturing it hence the only way is to go beyond language to go beyond scriptures, to go beyond indications to go beyond all possible symbols, metaphors and just to be in tune with the master just in a silent communion nothing is said, nothing is heard and yet it happens

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say something and it will be misunderstood try to understand it

and you have already misunderstood it neither saying is going to help nor listening is going to help the master is silent, the disciple is silent slowly slowly

the two silences merge and become one and when the two silences become one you hear

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

that is beyond alI expression and that is the moment of enlightenment it is a transmission beyond the words beyond indications, beyond scriptures just a flame jumping into another heart a quantum leap from a lit lamp to an unlit lamp the lit lamp loses nothing and the unlit gains everything it is a transmission of light a transmission of the lamp so the disciple has to learn only one thing how to sit in silence, in tremendous love waiting

waiting for the moment when it comes not desiring, not expecting not asking, not demanding

just waiting

that is the very soul of sannyas the word waiting

truth is beyond discussion it cannot be discussed

either you see it or you don't see it it cannot be proved

no argument can support it or destroy it it is not a question of philosophical debate because it is not intellectual at alI hence the most futile exercise in the world is philosophy

it is just hair-splitting, absolutely pointless the most stupid thing

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that one can get involved in is philosophy after thousands of years of philosophical analysis not a single conclusion has been reached not a single truth has been arrived at that is enough reason

for philosophy being dropped, completely dropped it is an exercise in utter futility this is where sannyas

takes a totally different route sannyas basically means mysticism it is not philosophical, it is existential we are not searching to know about truth we are not trying to know about truth we are trying to be the truth and to be the truth is the only way to know it there is no other way

unless you have tasted it totally so totally that it has become part of your blood, bone and marrow you will not know it

unless you have become it

there is no knowing of it

truth cannot be an object

it becomes your very subjectivity truth is subjectivity, your very innermost core it is self-discovery; hence one has to drop all the patterns of argumentation all the methods of analysis all doubts, all beliefs, all systems of thought theistic, atheistic

catholic, protestant, hindu, mohammedan one has to get rid of the whole fabric of the mind the whole junk has to be burned so that one is simply in a state of not-knowing and in that very state of not-knowing the flower of knowing opens up in the east we have called the flower the one-thousand-petalled lotus The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #3

Chapter title: None

3 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium 1/08/07

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in fact a relaxed person can move can make better effort

and a man of efficient effort can be better relaxed there is no intrinsic contradiction the contradiction exists only in words, language and in the mind

the experience of bliss

is one of the most paradoxical paradoxical in the sense that you have to manage two logical contradictions together you have to be effortlessly effortful because both effort and relaxation are needed for the experience to happen but it can be managed because the contradictions are only superficial

deep down they are complementaries one should try a few experiments for example, you can run: there is effort but still you can remain very relaxed you can bicycle: there is effort but at the same time

your whole body

can remain very quiet calm and relaxed you can move your hand: there is effort but you can move the hand with such grace with such a relaxedness that there is no effort at all then it becomes the very foundation for bliss to descend

this is the whole art of sannyas one has to make tremendous effort yet one has to remember that bliss is a gift of god so, just by your effort it is not going to happen and without your effort

it is not going to happen either man has fallen into both extremes there are people who think it is a gift of god 1/08/07

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so nothing can be done we just have to wait it will never happen, just waiting is not enough through waiting with great effort through doing whatsoever you can do to the uttermost

and then waiting

it happens

the other extreme is: if it happens through our effort then we will make every effort what is the need of prayer what is the need of god's help?

if it is going to happen through our effort then we will manage

we will do all kinds of yoga, austerities, practices we will have a discipline, a character a morality. virtue

and it will happen

it does not happen

because whatsoever you can do will remain trivial it prepares you to receive the gift but it does not bring the gift itself it makes you receptive, welcoming, but that's all when the guest comes

it comes just by your opening of the door there is no intrinsic necessity for the guest to come keep the door open, remain alert, watchful doing everything that you can do so it cannot be said

that you have not done anything don't leave a single stone unturned on your part

everything should be fulfilled in that very instant when you are finished and you cannot do any more the miracle happens: bliss descends it is one of the most paradoxical experiences hence millions of religious people have missed it they were searching, seeking but they still missed it there are two kinds of religions in the world one believes in prayer

christianity, islam, hinduism -- they believe in prayer 1/08/07

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because they think bliss is the gift of god all that you can do is pray ask and it shall be given unto you knock and the door shall be opened all that is needed on your part is prayer the other kind of religiousness is that of jainism, buddhism, yoga they believe in effort, not in prayer because there is no need for prayer jainism and buddhism

deny the very existence of god if there is no need for prayer there is no need for anybody to pray either man is enough unto himself the first kind of religion creates a lethargy and the second kind of religion creates ego my sannyasins have to avoid both extremes i am teaching a totally new vision a vision in which your effort is basically needed but it is not enough

it takes you to ninety-nine point nine degrees it is very essential

without it that point one degree won't happen but it takes you only up to that then you have to wait, trust, relax, hope, pray that point one degree happens through prayer ninety-nine point nine per cent happens through meditation point one per cent happens through prayer and then religion has a totality only the person who has experienced bliss can be a helper of others

otherwise alexes tend to become alexanders rather than helping mankind they start destroying mankind a miserable person

with all the good intentions in the world cannot help anybody

we can give only that which we have already got helping somebody means

you have got a nourishing energy in you a benevolent, compassionate love in you that you are radiating bliss that your presence is a healing force 1/08/07

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only then can you help

otherwise you will become a do-gooder and they are

the most dangerous people in the world the most mischievous

humanity has suffered much from the do-gooders missionaries, reformists, public servants these are the enemies

and i don't suspect their intentions their intentions are good, but they are not good it is like darkness trying to enlighten people it is like a dead man trying to give life to others it is like an unlit lamp gathering people around itself so that they can be enkindled it is absolutely, fundamentally wrong hence i don't teach public service and i don't teach you to become missionaries reformists, great servants of the people i teach only one thing

be blissful

then everything else follows of its own accord a blissful person cannot contain his bliss that is not possible in the very nature of things a blissful person

intrinsically radiates his source of joy just as light radiates rays and the flowers radiate their perfume the blissful person radiates compassion, love, benediction hence the first duty is not towards anybody else but towards yourself

help yourself

remember the ancient proverb physician, first heal thyself and then you can become a healing force and without any effort, without any ego simply, naturally, spontaneously so learn to dance, sing, celebrate learn to enjoy life in its multi-dimensionality and that will make you an alex and prevent you from becoming an alexander god is not a separate entity 1/08/07

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god is not somewhere outside you god is your interiority, your innermost core hence the search is not for a god somewhere else god is nothing but a name for your own centre and the search for god

is nothing but a self-discovery and the moment you discover yourself you also discover blissfulness because that is the nature of the self so both things happen simultaneously they are two sides of the same coin either meditate and discover your innermost core that is one way

or dance and sing to abandonment lose yourself in joy

so totally that you are no more there only the dance is, the song is that is another way of discovering you will discover the same coin but from different aspects buuddha discovered through meditation meera discovered through dance these are the two fundamental roots because these are the two sides of your inner being and one is as valid as the other i have no special preference for either so i leave my sannyasins to choose it is not very difficult to choose either one has just to ponder over one's likings if you love silence

if you love aloneness

if you love just to be within yourself if you want and desire to forget the whole and all its worries

if you feel the world is too much with you then meditation is your way if you enjoy people, relationship, love company, friends, music, dance, celebration if you enjoy the vast universe around you and it makes you rejoice; it is not tiring it is not exhausting, but rejuvenatinq then bliss is your way

and each person has to decide for himself i don't impose anything on anybody 1/08/07

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i simply give you the whole perspective so you can choose

and both are valid means

one is not higher than the other both reach the same goal

so it is only a question of individual liking before one starts the journey one should decide which is one's way because sometimes it can happen in fact it happens many times it happens more often than it should happen that people choose the opposite because the opposite has a certain attraction it is just as a man is attracted towards a woman a woman is attracted towards a man the negative and the positive electric poles are attracted towards each other the opposite has a certain attraction beware of that

because if you choose the opposite you will be in trouble, you will never be at ease so rather than looking

at the attraction of the opposite look at your own liking

your own nature your own functioning watch yourself

what is it that gives you more juice?

that should be the determining factor the decisive factor

that is the only criterion and once you have taken a right step the journey is half-complete because the first step is also the last step in india we have one thousand names for god there is a whole scripture, vishnushastranam devoted only to the names of god nothing else is written in it only one thousand names

madhav is one of the most beautiful of all those names

it means the sweet one

it is a very different vision than that of the jewish god the jewish god says i am a very jealous god remember, i am not nice, i am not your uncle a very stern father

this is not a right concept of god, a jealous god?

god and jealousy cannot go together 1/08/07

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jealousy is perfectly okay for the devil and god saying i am not nice then who can be nice?

and god saying i am not your uncle what does he mean?

he means i am not the loving one i am not the compassionate one be afraid of me, i am cruel, i am hard, i am violent it is not accidental

that because of this judaic concept of god all the religions

islam, christianity and their sub-sects have always murdered each other so much bloodshed has been done by the christians and mohammedans that it seems absolutely unbelievable that in the name of religion there is so much hatred but if god is a jealous god, if god himself is not nice then how can the representatives of god be nice?

then how can the pope be nice?

he may pretend but all those pretensions are of no use in reality

they will talk about love and they will teach hatred they will preach love

and they will kill in the name of love madhav is a far more sophisticated vision of god the sweet one

you can see the difference jesus was worshipped by the christians not because he was a loving person but because he was crucified hence the cross has become the symbol not a rose flower

that would have represented jesus more accurately and you see krishna with a flute standing in a dancing pose with peacock feathers in his crown with bells tingling around his waist with long hair -- the original hippie it is a totally different vision of god madhav is one of the names of krishna the sweet one

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he sings, he plays on his flute, he gathers people and they dance and they celebrate it is a totally different kind of world a different dimension

even hindus have forgotten all about it they have been contaminated by christians and mohammedans they have forgotten their own vision that's why they are against me what i am doing here is really giving people songs again, dances providing flutes which have disappeared changing crosses into flutes -- that's my work and of course crosses can be made into flutes it is the same wood -- why make crosses?

my only desire is that we are able to transform all the crosses of the world into flutes and that every church

starts singing, dancing, swinging and every church loses its seriousness that jealous god has to be said goodbye to forever we have to create a new kind of religiousness of sweetness, of love, of friendship, of joy so my message is contained in the word bliss because it is bliss that will make you sweet not only you

but it will spread sweetness all around you be blissful and you are religious be blissful and you are a sannyasin the experience of ecstasy

is the only truth worth seeking and searching for when i talk about the truth i don't talk in a philosophical way not the way immanuel kant will talk about it or bertrand russell, or wittgenstein they talk about truth as a concept not as an experience

they talk about truth as a conclusion of the mind i talk about truth as joy in the heart it has nothing to do with logic nothing to do with philosophy it has something to do with a transformation of your innermost core

when your very being starts throbbing, pulsating in tune with existence

when there is no discord between you and the whole 1/08/07

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when you are so synchronised with the whole that you are no more but only the whole is that is the moment

when truth has been experienced but the taste of truth is that of bliss when you drink truth your whole being is full of the taste of bliss and ecstasy and that taste never leaves you it is eternal

it comes, it never goes

it is forever

so i talk about truth

the way jesus talked, buddha talked, lao t~u talked but not like aristotle

not like the long tradition of the so-called philosophers kierkegaard, sartre, buber they are all talking about it philosophically it is like a hungry person philosophically thinking about food he can go on thinking and he will go on dying because while he is thinking he is starving he may think beautiful thoughts about food he will have tremendous fantasies about food all kinds of dishes

chinese and japanese and italian but that is not going to help what he needs is some real nourishment but it happens only when you enter the innermost shrine of your being and that is the moment of truth when you experience bliss

it can be very easily done the way of philosophy is long and unending and the way of mysticism is short if one is courageous enough one can attain it instantly this very moment

the dimension of bliss

is the dimension of absolute silence the same silence that prevails on high mountains on higher altitudes on virgin peaks -- undisturbed bliss

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is not to be made synonymous only with silence it is silent

but it is a silence with a difference it is a dancing silence

it is a singing silence

it is not dead

and that too you will feel at the altitudes of the mountains the silence is there

but the silence has a totally different quality it is not the silence of the cemetery when you go to the graveyard there is silence but something is dead and stinking we can hide it

we can make beautiful graveyards with marble, with trees, bushes, roses but those corpses are there howsoever we hide them they jump out they show their faces

with all the facades we cannot deny death death has happened

death prevails there in the graveyard there is no song in it, there is no dance in it there is no music, no poetry it is a negative kind of silence but the silence that prevails on the himalayan peaks where snow never melts

for millions of years the snow has never melted where no footprints are left that virginity, that silence, that purity that crisp coolness is not dead; it is very much alive you can hear the heartbeat of it you can hear

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

the same happens within when bliss is attained you are silent yet your silence is a song and that has to be constantly remembered if silence alone happens it is not worth much if song alone happens it is not worth much silence alone is dead, song alone is feverish when silence and song meet then the deadness and the feverishness both disappear

and there is immense health, wholeness i call that wholeness, holiness 1/08/07

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that has to be

the flavour of my sannyasins their perfume

The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #4

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4 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103045

ShortTitle: CLAPP04

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the only way to honour existence is to rejoice in it no prayer can be real honour because prayer is basically a demand in fact deep down it is a complaint you are asking for something more it is not gratitude

it is just the opposite of gratitude hence, what goes on

in the churches and the temples and the mosques and the synagogues is not honour for existence the real honour can be only one to rejoice

in existence's absolute ordinariness in the small things

because there are no great things eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, sitting looking at the stars or at the trees just small things

life consists of all these small things but if you know how to rejoice then the ordinary becomes extraordinary then you know the magic of transformation then the mundane is no more mundane it becomes sacred

and to make the mundane sacred is the whole philosophy of sannyas 1/08/07

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there is only one real marriage and that is marriage to bliss in fact all other marriages are indirect ways of reaching bliss but when there is a direct route why unnecessarily go by an indirect route?

and the experience of thousands of years is that the people who go through the indirect never reach

there are a thousand and one obstacles they get distracted

they search for bliss but they attain only misery they hope for heaven but what they gain is only hell existence has to be approached directly not via anything, no mediator is needed and the direct approach to existence is what i call meditation

without any mediator

without anybody

standing between you and existence when you encounter existence in its tremendous beauty

bliss starts showering and it goes on showering it knows no end

there is only one marriage worthwhile and that is being wedded to bliss directly sannyas can be defined as a marriage to bliss avoiding all other husbands and wives and when you have avoided all in between the philosophies, the religions, the dogmas it is so close

that there is not even a single inch's difference the difference is created by the indirect approach the distance is created by people who are standing between you and the whole there is no need for anybody no messenger, no prophet is needed god is yours

existence is yours as much as anybody else's one should take an immediate plunge yes

one hesitates a little before one plunges into the ultimate depths of life 1/08/07

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that hesitation is natural but one has to put that hesitation aside one has to be courageous

and it is a single moment's courage that does the magic

it is just like jumping into cold water if you go on standing on the bank you can go on standing for lives it is only a question

of a single moment of courage and risk throw off your clothes and jump in yes it is cold... but only for a moment and then it has tremendous beauty and tremendous freshness

aliveness

the false aristocrat is an aristocrat because of birth which is not much, which has no significance birth is the same

whether you are born in an emperor's home or in a beggar's home

the womb is the same

the queen's womb or the beggar woman's womb it makes no difference at all the real aristocracy comes from a second birth that is the meaning of sujato when you become blissful

when you become silent

when you become loving

when you become aware

when a second birth happens which is the birth of your consciousness of your real being

not of the body, but of the being and then one has a certain aristocracy such a person may not have anything he may be a beggar

but you will see the grace of the emperor in him you will see him surrounded by a subtle aura of the beyond he is really born

others are only half-born

they are in a kind of limbo. physically born but psychologically still waiting for birth socrates says, i am a midwife 1/08/07

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that s exactly the function of a master to help you attain the second birth in india, when a person becomes awakened we call him twice-born, dwija one who has been born again the first birth

brings you out of the physical womb the second birth

brings you out of the psychological womb the first birth brings you out of the physical womb into the psychological

it creates mind

the second birth takes you out of the psychological and brings you to the spiritual it gives you being

and being is immortality, deathlessness the only criterion

that the second birth has happened is total blissfulness

in all situations unaffected, untouched by whatsoever happens around failure or success, richness or poverty youth or old age, life or death the wheel of the opposites goes on moving but the man who knows bliss remains centred, unmoved

he is the unmoving centre of a moving wheel the centre of the cyclone

there are many kinds of beauties there is the physical beauty which is only momentary

it may be there today and tomorrow it is gone in fact it is bound to

in fact it is already going down the drain slipping out of your hands every moment the second layer of beauty is psychological it is of intellect, of aesthetic sensibility the man who has a musical ear or the man who has the sensitivity of a painter in his eyes

his beauty is far deeper than the physical sometimes it happens

that the person may be physiologically ugly for example

1/08/07

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socrates was very ugly, snub-nosed but psychologically, a man of immense beauty if one saw him from far away he was repulsive but if one came in close contact then one would enter

into a totally different kind of man because he had such a keen intelligence rarely surpassed

and such sensibility

such aesthetic transparency that once you looked into his psyche you would completely forget his body the same seems to be true about jesus physiologically he was not beautiful but psychologically one of the most beautiful men who has ever walked on the earth but there is still a third the ultimate layer of beauty that is of being, is absolutely of your interiority to understand that

seeing the body is not enough experiencing the person's intelligence and sensitivity is not enough

for that only a disciple

one who is absolutely surrendered open, vulnerable, is needed that's what sannyas is all about being in tune with the master at the deepest level of beauty by-passing the physiological, the psychological just going like an arrow

not being stuck

at the physiological or the psychological but hitting deep down

into the very core of the master only then do you know the ultimate beauty and there resides bliss

the physiological beauty may give you pleasure the psychological can give you happiness but only the spiritual can give you bliss it opens the doors of the kingdom of bliss so one can do two things

either one discovers one's being and in that very discovery one becomes blissful 1/08/07

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or one starts becoming blissful and in becoming blissful one discovers one's being both are the same

different aspects of the same phenomenon if you want to enter from the first door then meditate then be silent

and drown yourself deeper and deeper down to the very rock-bottom of your being there you will find yourself and bliss

as a shadow

or, if that is not your liking the feminine mind particularly does not like meditation very much it is natural

that's why there have been very few women buddhas not that there is any intrinsic obstruction for a woman to become a buddha the only reason has been that all the male buddhas have been talking about meditation and meditation

does not have much appeal for the woman she needs a totally different approach she will be more interested in blissfulness in something orgasmic

in something which is closer to dance, music, poetry in something to which

she can abandon herself totally not in something

which is a question of self-remembering meditation means self-remembering and blissfulness means forgetting the self totally when you begin they look opposite remembering and forgetting are certainly opposites but when you reach closer to your being they become one

remembering the self brings you to the real self the unreal self is dropped on the way and in forgetting the self from the very beginning you start dropping the false self a moment comes when the false self is abandoned and the real arises of its own accord my effort here is to create a balance which has been lacking up to now 1/08/07

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religion has been dominated too much by the male mind

it has been a calamity

the woman has been unnecessarily deprived it is very difficult to find women of the calibre of buddha

zarathustra, lao tzu

difficult for the simple reason that the method they chose was male-oriented so i am creating a synthesis here those who are male-oriented a few women are male-oriented it is not necessarily so that no woman will be interested in meditation there are a few women

who will reach through meditation and there are a few men

who will reach through blissfulness but those are exceptions

and exceptions cannot be counted they only prove the rule

so for you

my suggestion is be more blissful dance, sing, be a drunkard and then it will be easier once the door opens for the drunken people then thousands of women who have been waiting for millions of years to become buddhas and they are all arriving here this may be the first place where thousands of women will become buddhas i count courage

as being the most significant religious quality although in the past

just the opposite has been the case cowards, only cowards

out of fear, afraid of death hell, punishment, judgement day have been religious

out of fear they were praying doing all kinds of stupid rituals, following utter fools but their orientation was such that they could not be rebellious they were afraid of rebellion, they had to be obedient obedience has been taught to them as the most fundamental religious quality it is not

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it may be a quality in an army but it is not a quality of a religious man it is a subtle method of regimentation the religious person

has to be courageous enough to explore because truth cannot be given by the scriptures it is untransferrable

bliss cannot be transmitted to you by somebody else

you have to seek and search and you have to travel alone and you have to go onto untravelled paths because there are not asphalt ways no superhighways where crowds can go and buses can go and tourists can go one has to go alone

and one has to create one's path oneself by walking on it

the path is not already there, it is not readymade buddha is reported to have said that the way of the true seeker is like a bird flying in the sky it leaves no footprints

so no other bird can follow it because there are no footprints left there are no footprints at all existence always remains the same mystery many have experienced it

but nobody has been able to demystify it nobody will ever be able to demystify it because when you experience it, it is inexpressible you cannot put it into words, into theories and if one is courageous

bliss starts from the very beginning just the idea that you are going into the exploration of the unknown is enough to give the heart a new beat

a fresh breeze, a new joy

a rebirth, a resurrection

truth, bliss, freedom, godliness, love these are all aspects of one experience and that experience is available only to the courageous, to the rebellious be a rebel

sannyas is a rebellion

a rebellion against all tradition a rebellion against all the rotten past 1/08/07

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a rebellion against all that is dead and a search for the living a search which will need

many many risks to be taken adventures to be accepted

challenges to be encountered but it is a joy

it is bliss all the way from the beginning to the end one just has to learn the taste of exploration and then

each moment becomes more and more alive more and more festive

more and more celebrating

and the ultimate celebration is when you have found

that you are bliss

that bliss is not something outside you that you are god

that god is not something outside you that you are freedom, that you are liberation in that moment the ultimate dance happens it simply explodes

in that explosion you are lost and only that which is truth remains that truth is the longing of every heart man has been told again and again to be perfect that is a wrong beginning

to tell somebody to be perfect is to drive him nuts that's why the whole of humanity is almost living in a madhouse perfection is not something that one can achieve it is a by-product of blissfulness remember the word by-product you cannot achieve it directly it comes as a shadow of blissfulness so i don't say to you to be perfect i say to you to be blissful and perfection will follow of its own accord in its own time

and who cares for perfection?

if you have a need

it is only the miserable person who cares for perfection

the blissful person has no need for it 1/08/07

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and this is one of the fundamental laws of life if you are in need you will not get it existence functions

almost on the same lines as banking the bank is not going to give to you if you don't have any need the bank is after you existence is always willing to give to you if you don't need

the needy person is a beggar and existence does not like beggars the person who is blissful is an emperor and existence loves emperors so be blissful, rejoice

and don t bother about perfection it comes

it inevitably comes

and when it comes on its own it has a tremendous beauty my only discipline is to be blissful no other discipline is needed no moral commandments

no shoulds, should-nots

just a simple message to be blissful in whatsoever you can be, be blissful and if one can imbibe the spirit of bliss then many things follow

a blissful person is bound to be loving you need not tell him love thy neighbour as thyself you need not tell him love thy enemy as thyself because when somebody

tries to love their neighbour that love is false, the very effort makes it false when one tries to love one's enemy one knows perfectly that he is the enemy otherwise, why should one try to love him?

one knows he is the enemy but one has to try because jesus says so

and that is the only way to reach paradise so it has to be done somehow one pretends, one creates a pseudo kind of love and the pseudo kind of love is very saccharin It is not even sugar, it is not even sweet it is saccharin, it tastes a little bitter and because it is false

the other person will immediately see it as false 1/08/07

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and will feel humiliated, insulted friedrich nietzsche has said, and said rightly that jesus is not right when he says if somebody hits you on one of your cheeks give him the other too

and i agree with nietzsche far more in that matter

because he says

this is very insulting to the other person it is humiliating

you are trying to be superior and higher you are trying to be superhuman you are reducing the other person to a cockroach he is also a man, he needs equality you are trying to be superior i agree with nietzsche

if somebody hits you on one cheek give him a good hit on the other immediately that proves equality

it does not give you the idea of holier-than-thou of look, you are hitting me and i am giving you my other cheek you are just an ordinary human being i am a saint, a sage

that is very egoistic

but this is bound to happen if you try to cultivate qualities love, compassion, mercy

when cultivated become bogus, false, facades they should come out of your blissfulness yes, if you are so blissful that you enjoyed one hit on the cheek give him the other also

not because you are being superior but because you enjoyed it that's a totally different approach you are telling him please, one more it brought me to my senses i loved it it made me a little awakened you will be obliged to the person because he has hit you

you will not be condescending you will not be trying in any way to be superior if you are full of bliss, you will share your bliss that is natural

but you will not be serving people 1/08/07

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you will be sharing

service is ugly, sharing is beautiful when you serve somebody you hurt him you humiliate him

all christian missionaries are humiliating they are searching for the cripples, for the widows what kind of people are these J

if they don't find any widows or any orphans or any cripples they will be at a loss

what to do?

how to reach god?

the whole ladder has disappeared they are stepping on these people's heads they are making their way to god these are stepping stones, not people a man of bliss shares

it is not a question

of whether the person needs it or not he simply shares because he has too much out of abundance he shares hence my only discipline is be blissful and everything else follows it man has tried in many ways to be silent because the world is too noisy it is too much, it is very loud it creates great tension, anxiety, anguish hence a natural idea arises in the mind of man about how to get rid of it how to hide yourself in some sanctuary monastery, mountain, in a desert where nobody disturbs you

where you are left alone to yourself there is great need to be oneself to have one's own space

this is a logical conclusion because the world is too heavy and sooner or later a person feels crowded overcrowded, crushed, from all sides suffocated because of this suffocation religion became an escape

1/08/07

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the conclusion is logical but not real not existential

you can escape from the world but you cannot escape from yourself and the real cause of noise is within you not in the world

you will quarrel with the monks in the monastery nuns will compete and be jealous of each other even in the desert, sitting alone a crow will start disturbing you and that will be enough, in a desert that is enough in the marketplace

you could have forgotten the crow but in the desert a single crow is enough wherever you go

you will carry your mind, your reactions and if there is nothing to worry about you will start worrying about nothing what am i doing here?

is it right to be here?

is it good to sit alone in the desert when the whole world is suffering?

this is escapism

and perhaps i am missing something who knows?

life is a great opportunity and i am sitting in the desert doing nothing you will become disturbed about it you will create new kinds of problems for yourself mind grows problems just like trees grow leaves the conclusion is logical but not real not of real help

so i don't suggest escapism, i suggest an alchemy to transform your inner being into a song your inner noise into a song because a song

is nothing but a transformation of noise what is music after all?

just noise arranged in a beautiful way the same orchestra can drive you crazy just put together thirty crazy musicians who are not in tune with each other at all and that will be enough

the same orchestra, the same instruments can create something celestial 1/08/07

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something of the beyond

it is the same noise

just a little different arrangement escape is not needed

but a different alchemy is needed so i don't say leave the world i say change your attitude, your approach rather than searching

for an empty space somewhere search for a blissful song within create it

all that is needed is available it just has to be put in the right combination every ingredient is already given you just have to mix it

mix it artfully. intelligently and once you have created

the song of bliss within you you will be surprised that the whole world has no more difficulties for you you go singing in the marketplace you can sit in the madhouse with absolute joy in fact you can enjoy the mad people i have been doing that for my whole life what do you think i am doing right now?

collecting all kinds of crazies, cuckoos and enjoying it, really enjoying it they are beautiful people

somebody just needs to know how to enjoy them somebody needs a certain insight i used to visit the madhouses then finally i dropped it

because i saw that the whole earth is a madhouse what is the point of going behind walls outside the walls is the same place once you have an inner tune then nothing disturbs you

then the whole existence becomes a song and a song that contains silence a silence that contains song when song and silence both meet together the ultimate is achieved

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

1/08/07

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The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #5

Chapter title: None

5 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103055

ShortTitle: CLAPP05

Audio:

No

Video:

No

every child is born innocent and brings with him a great message of the whole every child is a messenger of good tidings every child is a christ

but before he can deliver the message we destroy it

before he can utter a single word we start stuffing his mind with our cunningness before his heart opens and releases its fragrance we divert his energies from the heart to the head --

and the head is never innocent t is always calculating, cunning; it is a cheat the heart is always innocent hence only the heart can be in connection with the divine not the head

the head is good in the marketplace but not in the temple

but people who are full of the head are dominating the temples also man has completely forgotten his heart his heartfulness, his innocence, his purity and the message that he had come to deliver my effort here

is to give you again the same innocence that you had before society sabotaged it before the society entered you and disrupted your whole inner being and nature sannyas is not an effort to achieve some goal on the contrary

1/08/07

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it is a re-entry into the source the white lily

has a certain beauty, a certain grace which is unique

because the white lily is very poor in every way it is not as rich as the rose not as rich as the lotus

these are like kings and queens the white lily is very ordinary but In its ordinariness it has something its very ordinariness, its simplicity its humbleness, its nobodiness is its source of grace

it is unpretentious, it has no ego the rose may have an ego -- it can afford it the white lily is just a nothingness and whenever one is in a nothingness grace arises

grace is the by-product of being nobody of being just ordinary

i exalt ordinariness

because it is the source of all that is really beautiful, graceful, divine once you become nobody you become innocent the very effort to be somebody makes people cunning and political the moment you drop the ambition to be somebody then all foolishness, then all idiocy then all egoistic desires are dropped simultaneously and suddenly there is an explosion of grace and that grace has to be the flavour of my sannyasins

aristocracy can be defined in two ways one is the mundane aristocracy which is confined to a noble birth it is not of much value

it has no spiritual significance but aristocracy can also be defined as a spiritual birth, a second birth the first birth is physiological --

aristocratic or not, it is the same the second birth happens only to those who are really innocent and who prepare for innocence who are ready to receive the gift from the beyond 1/08/07

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who are receptive

that's what i mean by innocence a preparation

the first aristocracy is cunning it is part of a long exploitation one is born in a royal family --

that simply means one is born in a family of murderers, dacoits, criminals the longer the history of the family the bigger is their crime

for thousands of years they have exploited people oppressed people, tortured people their aristocracy is full of blood, it is ugly it is nothing to brag about it is something to be ashamed about but when you are born anew through silence, innocence awareness, meditativeness

when you give birth to yourself --

which has nothing to do with the past or your parents or history when it is your individual creativity, receptivity when you are individually involved with existence when you respond to existence without any ambition, desire, demand when you are open, available, like a mirror when in your innocence

existence starts reflecting itself as it is without any distortion

you are born anew

that is real aristocracy

a sannyasin has to be an aristocrat but with my meaning

the word innocent is very significant to me it is a state of not-knowing the knowledgeable person is not innocent he cannot be: he already knows and that very knowing gives him the ego knowledge is the most subtle nourishment for the ego

far more than money, power, prestige because power can be taken away one day you are a napoleon another day you are a prisoner 1/08/07

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the power is not something very stable you cannot rely upon it

one day you are rich

the next day you are just a beggar respectability can be lost very easily because it depends on other's opinions their opinions may change

and they do change every day the man who was the prime minister of russia before the revolution, kerensky --

everybody has forgotten about him nobody even remembers his name he was the most significant man in russia before lenin

then suddenly it were as if he disappeared after fifty years it became known that he was a grocer in new york and he died as a grocer

when he died then the world became aware that kerensky had been alive for fifty years otherwise nobody had even taken any note of where he had gone, of what had happened to him but knowledge is far more subtle it cannot be stolen, nobody can destroy it nobody ,can take it away from you it is far more significant for the ego than anything else

hence the greatest problem in becoming innocent is the dropping of knowledge money can be dropped, power can be dropped prestige can be dropped

respectability can be renounced but knowledge -- one clings to it i have seen people who have renounced the world they have gone to the mountains and still they are hindus, mohammedans, christians i asked them, you have renounced the world but you have not renounced the knowledge that the world had given to you what kind of renunciation is this?

you are still a christian? --

then how can you say

you have renounced the world?

you say you have renounced your parents, your wife, your children but you have not renounced all the nonsense that they have given to you you are still carrying it with you 1/08/07

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they were not even aware of the fact that something of the world goes on inside them knowledge is the penetration of the world within you and to drop it is the real renunciation so i don't say renounce the world i only say renounce knowledgeability the moment you renounce knowlegeability you are again a child

and to be a child again is to be a sage a real sage, who knows nothing because he knows nothing he is full of wonder because he knows nothing his eyes are full of awe because he knows nothing everything surprises him now each moment is mysterious and miraculous that's my way

the way of innocence, the way of not-knowing the way of living in a mystery moment to moment and one has to remember

that knowledge accumulates every day it is like dust gathering on the mirror even in the night when nothing is happening the mirror is gathering dust even in the night when nothing is being learned your mind is gathering dust through dreams, nightmares, fantasies so one has to be constantly cleaning each moment one has to die to the past so all that has been accumulated up to that moment, is dropped --

again you are fresh, young, alive, childlike, innocent and then the whole world is yours then all the joys of it are yours then life is an eternal ecstasy then life is poetry, music then life is beauty, benediction all that is significant happens in innocence the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

the eternal music is heard when there is nobody as a knower when there is nobody, not even as an observer when one simply participates 1/08/07

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when the observer becomes the observed when you see the rainbow

you are not there separate from it you become it

when you see a beautiful sunset you are it it is the mind that divides when you see the sky full of stars it is within you, you are within it there is no distinction, no demarcation no fencing around you

it is a dissolution, a melting, a merging a deep orgasmic unity

and that is the very foundation of my message the so-called saints i don't count as sages the so-called saints live a structured life according to certain prescriptions of others they are basically slaves

they are performing certain rituals but doing it efficiently

hence the people who believe in those rituals will call them saints

so a christian saint

may not be thought of as a saint by the hindus because their rituals differ their definitions differ

for example, no hindu has ever thought that saints should go and serve the poor --

that has not been part of their definition a saint has to be served

he is not to be a servant

a saint being a servant is sacrilege to the hindu but to the christian the saint is one who serves the poor, the down-trodden there are three hundred religions in the world and three hundred definitions of saints all those definitions are manufactured according to certain tradition certain scripture, certain ideology and the man who lives

according to such traditions ideologies and scriptures

is not really a man

what to say about his being a saint? --

he is not even a man

he is just a robot; he has no guts the sage is rebellious

he is always outrageous to the traditional mind no tradition will respect him 1/08/07

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it cannot, because he will not fit with anybody's expectations and he does not care either a real sage lives in such joy who bothers whether people respect you or insult you?

whether they crown you or crucify you?

it doesn't matter, not in the least a sage is one

who lives according to his own innocent heart not according to anybody else's dictates it is an individual rebellion and only through individual rebellion do you attain to the ultimate soul the ultimate flowering of your being be innocent

that means be without any traditional garbage and be a rebel

that means risk everything to be an individual and if one can gather that much courage then only does something meaningful happen in life otherwise it is just a long, long, slow suicide not life at all

it is possible only for the child to attain union with the whole because the child

has not yet grown a hard core around himself he is flexible

he has not yet got encapsulated in an ego but the way society exists, no child can manage it because the child is helpless he depends on the parents

and the parents are either christian hindus, mohammedans

communists, fascists and what not and they are bound to stuff their nonsense into the mind of the child the child Is the most exploited person In the world but there is a possibility it is the only possibility that later on

when you become a little more independent when you can stand on your own feet you can discard all that has been forced upon you you can again become a child and that is the beginning of sannyas 1/08/07

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becoming a child again

is the greatest experience in life and then the second thing is very simple if you can discard the boundaries suddenly the dewdrop slips into the ocean and becomes the ocean

or vice versa is also true the ocean slips into the dewdrop and becomes the dewdrop

that meeting is called yoga and one who attains that union is a yogi so don't go for the cheap

third-rate definitions of a yogi somebody standing on his head thinks he is a yogi

he is just stupid

somebody distorting and contorting his body and doing gymnastics

thinks he is doing yoga

he is just deceiving himself by all these gymnastics

one cannot attain to the ultimate union the only way to attain to that union is through innocence

innocence is the door to god and there is no other door, remember mind can never be contented that is not its nature

its very working is through discontent mind means asking for more and more and more ad infinitum

the mind is a beggar

the mind is a bowl of a beggar and not an ordinary bowl either it has no bottom in it

so you go on dropping things into it and they go on disappearing and the bowl remains as empty as ever but the heart is an emperor because the heart already contains the kingdom of god within it it never asks for more -- it cannot ask because there is not anything more possible than it has already got

to know one's heart is to become contented utterly contented

1/08/07

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but to know the heart one has to become innocent one was born innocent

hence one can again become innocent it is just a rediscovery of one's real nature it is not something that has to be achieved it is not far away

it is just inside us, covered with junk that junk can be removed

and it is so simple to remove it once you recognise it as junk the very recognition that it is all rubbish is enough and you start shovelling it away and the moment you discover your innocent core you have discovered the ultimate treasure of life call it god, nirvana. enlightenment but those are all words

in fact it is so vast

that it cannot be contained in any word at all the sannyasin has to make just a small trip from the head to the heart from the artificial to the natural from the arbitrary to the spontaneous from the social to the individual i throw my sannyasins from their collective mind to their individual core

and that to me is the greatest revolution no other revolution can be compared with it because it is only through this revolution that you attain

a transcendental, ecstatic existence that you go beyond death

that you go beyond time

that for the first time you experience the eternal and that very experience is the whole purpose of life the whole and the sole purpose of life we are living in a bondage of course the bondage is very subtle the walls of the prison are not outside you hence you cannot see them

they are within you

they have been implanted inside your skin but they are keeping your soul in a cage so you walk

you go from one place to another place nobody prevents you

and you never see

that there are chains on your hands that there are guards

1/08/07

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who will not allow you to go beyond a certain boundary

hence there is an illusory kind of freedom one goes on believing that one is free but the society has learned very cunning methods through millions of years of time they have found ways to chain you from inside not with iron chains but by thought chains not with iron walls but by ideologies scriptures, philosophies, theologies, religions they have nailed you within and the most cunning thing is that they have put you on guard they call it conscience

if you start doing something against what they want you to do somebody inside you, a voice says don't do it

that is not your voice

that is the voice of the collective mind and you feel afraid

you feel as if god has spoken to you as if god is preventing you it is just a social trick, a very crafty phenomenon it is not your conscience

it has nothing to do with god but the society goes on manipulating you from within

don't do this, don't do that, do this even against yourself you go on doing things and even if you want to do certain things you don't do them because

the conscience prevents you and you believe that the conscience is yours that is the first thing to be dropped by a sannyasin

the conscience is not yours, it is your prison the conscience is nothing but slavery once you drop your conscience then you discover your consciousness hidden behind the prison of conscience is the freedom of consciousness --

and consciousness is innocent the moment you discover your consciousness you discover your freedom

and to know freedom

is to know the greatest joy in life 1/08/07

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meditation is only a method of undoing what the society has done to you sannyas is a change of gestalt from conscience to consciousness and the method is meditation the society has used mind as the method to remove you from consciousness to conscience what i am trying to do here is just the opposite of it, the very reverse of it using meditation as a process of shifting you back towards your original nature towards your original face from conscience to consciousness from bondage to freedom

the innocent person

does not have to cultivate simplicity if it is cultivated it is false anything cultivated is always false let that be a criterion to judge by never cultivate anything

simplicity, humbleness, compassion, love, purity --

if you cultivate them

you are creating something arbitrary they are not to be cultivated seek and search for the innocent within you seek for the source

that you had come with into the world go back to that original point the moment you touch

the original point of your being something starts radiating many rays start arising out of that centre those rays will contain

the whole spectrum of simplicity, compassion love, joy, beauty, grace, godliness but they all come as a by-product as consequences of discovering one's own being hence i don't give you any discipline i simply give you an insight into your being --

and that's enough

the function of the master is fulfilled if he can give you the insight to see your spontaneous nature then everything else follows of its own accord and when things come of their own accord 1/08/07

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they have tremendous beauty then there is grace and grandeur and something of the virgin beyond The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #6

Chapter title: None

6 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103065

ShortTitle: CLAPP06

Audio:

No

Video:

No

mind is never pure

by its very nature it cannot be pure its whole strategy is of cunningness, calculation mind is fear-oriented, it is a defence mechanism it cannot trust existence, life, love it cannot trust anything

it only doubts, it is suspicious and the suspicious, doubting one can never be pure purity is the quality of the heart just as mind is intrinsically cunning the heart is intrinsically innocent mind can be knowledgeable, heart can be wise mind can be learned

the heart can be childlike, innocent and all that is great happens in the heart not in the mind

sannyas is initiation into the ways of the heart it is getting out of the imprisonment of the mind and entering into the freedom of the heart it is a simple process

all that is needed is a little courage to trust a little courage to put doubts aside a little courage to risk

and then miracles start happening and they go on happening each moment life becomes just incredible a long, long, orgasmic ecstatic joy 1/08/07

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mind stinks

it cannot avoid it, its very functioning is rotten it lives on the old, the dead, the past it feeds on corpses

hence there is no possibility of fragrance as far as mind is concerned and all people are living in the mind hence life has become a chaos a very muddy, confused affair it has lost all the celebration no flowers grow anywhere

as far as human consciousness is concerned only thorns, bloody thorns but hidden

behind the thick layers of the mind and its crap is a beautiful source

which we have brought from the beyond our heart

it is still beating

its beat goes on becoming farther and farther away because the mind goes on accumulating junk you cannot hear its beat, you cannot taste its joy its fragrance is ready to be released the hindrances have to be removed and the only hindrance is the mind all other hindrances are part of the mind greed, jealousy, desire, possessiveness, anger, ego these are all aspects of the mind rather than fighting with each aspect separately which is an unnecessarily long process maybe unending

the best way

is to cut the whole mind in a single blow that's what sannyas is all about beheading yourself

and the moment you put the whole mind aside and it is only a question of decisiveness immediately something new

which has never been felt within you starts arising

a fragrance

life starts becoming a light unto itself life starts taking the colours the rainbow colours of love festivity, music, poetry, creativity, sensitivity the same energies which were involved 1/08/07

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in greed, anger, possessiveness, jealousy are released

and the same energies start moving into a totally different terrain, into a new dimension all that is needed on the part of my sannyasins is to shift their energies from the head to the heart trust the heart, try to live the heart wherever it leads go with it without any doubt, without any fear follow the heart and you will be following true religion follow the mind

and you will be following

christianity, hinduism, mohammedanism all untrue religions

the true religion is basically individual and the untrue is collective mind is part of the collective and the heart is your individual source people are living a life of curse and nobody else is responsible for it that is the strangest thing about it they themselves are responsible they have got caught in a pattern, a vicious circle they go on moving in the wheel clinging tightly to the wheel and the wheel is crushing them mind is a wheel with many spokes but exactly in the centre of the wheel there is something unmoving unless we touch that centre that unmoving centre of all movement we can never feel the benediction of existence it is always there, within our reach any moment we can dive deep into it but we cling to the wheel

and the faster it moves the more afraid we are and so we cling more tightly we cling to our doubts

not seeing a simple fact

that a person who lives in doubts cannot be blissful doubt can only create misery because it is negative it is darkness

it is not light

1/08/07

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it can create suspicion, it can create fear it can create a persecution-mania it can create violence

but it cannot create bliss but still people brag about their doubting mind they think it is something great they talk about their scepticism they think it is something philosophical it is sheer stupidity but they make much fuss because they have made it an investment of their life they cling to their greed

knowing perfectly well that it is unfulfillable and when you cling to something which is unfulfillable

you will remain miserable

wherever you are misery will haunt you you will be asking for more and more and whenever you ask for more you will feel frustrated

because it is never coming even if it comes your demand grows the demand grows in the same proportion so you remain as hungry, as beggarly as ever and this is the case with everything anger, pessimism

always seeing the negative side of life there are people

if you take them to a rose bush they will count the thorns first they will count the thorns roses don't matter; what matters is thorns and then their fingers are bloody and they are hurting

and then they become so angry and their eyes become so antagonistic towards the rose bush

that it becomes impossible to see the roses a thick fog of anger surrounds them this is our doing

a sannyasin has to be aware of all this nonsense if you go to a rose bush, dance around it look at the roses

rejoice in the roses

see the miracle

amongst thousands of flowers a rose has blossomed

1/08/07

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what more mystery can there be?

jesus walking on water is nothing compared to it in fact if you walk on water you will only look silly a rose growing in the thorns is really a miracle and once you have seen the rose, the positive you are shifting your gears from the mind to the heart from cunningness to innocence from negativity to positivity and then life becomes an eternal song the purest experience in life is that of love sex is not love, it is biological prayer is not love, it is theological the first -- sex, which is misunderstood by many as love

is below human consciousness it belongs to our past, it is just a hangover the second is only a fiction -- the prayer that, too, really belongs to our past out of fear man started praying to god in fact, out of fear he created god god is nothing but fear personified so one is biological

another is just religious, superstitious between the two is the golden mean something of immense value that is love

it is more than sex and more than prayer it is the fragrance of human consciousness it is the flowering of consciousness itself hence i put love

as the highest expression

of all that is great

jesus says god is love; i say love is god because when you say god is love that simply means

god may have many other qualities love is only one of the qualities of god god is important, love is only one of the aspects to me love is god

love is the real thing

godliness is only one of the qualities of love my message is

beyond biology and beyond theology 1/08/07

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my message is

simply that of expanding human consciousness and love

is nothing but sharing of your consciousness with as many people as possible not only with people, with animals, with trees with birds, with clouds, with stars the whole emphasis is on sharing not with whom

the address is not important sharing

the sheer joy of sharing your being is love and that is the purest phenomenon the holiest of the holy

the most sacred

and it is hidden in the very ordinariness of our lives so we are not to go anywhere to search for it we have to dig it

now and here

and within ourselves

the heart is naturally contented it never asks for more

whatsoever is, is more than enough mind is naturally discontented whatsoever is, is never enough more is needed hence mind lives in a constant struggle with existence never at ease, always tense always anxious, worried

anguish has become its very centre just the opposite is the case with the heart there is no conflict, no struggle as each moment unfolds the heart lives it with joy with gratitude, with immense thankfulness because it is a gift of the whole we don't deserve it at all if next moment i die

there is no court of appeal for it i cannot say to anybody

why

why could i not exist for a few minutes more?

we all know it

still we go on taking for granted whatsoever is given to us

this is one of the ugly traits of the mind it never feels grateful

1/08/07

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hence mind can never be religious gratefulness is the core of religion, the very core move from the discontented world of the mind to the contented world of the near and small things are so blissful just a cup of tea

just sipping the tea, savouring its taste and flavour is as great an ecstasy

as any buddha has achieved in his samadhi there is no difference at all the question is not

whether you are sitting underneath a tree and meditating

or sitting in your room and sipping tea the question is of the heart if the heart is contented in the moment then whether under the tree, in the mountains or in the room, it makes no difference the contented heart knows the beauties of existence the mysteries of life

all the doors open for it

existence is closed for the mind open for the heart

existence is closed for the cunning open for the pure

god to me is not a person

but only a presence, an experience like love, like joy, like beauty you cannot encounter joy

you cannot meet joy and say, hello how are you?

you cannot because joy

is not something separate from you joy is an experience, so is the case with joy so my expression for god is godliness linguistically, gramatically, it does not look right so i go on using the word god but whenever i use the word god i mean godliness purity is godliness

and by purity i don't mean a moral purity following the ten commandments you become pure

that is not purity; that is sheer cunningness those ten commandments are basically jewish it is a business proposal, it is pure business it is arranging for the other world creating a bank balance there 1/08/07

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if god wants these things to be done only then you will be allowed in so okay, we will do these things but it is only a doing

not your being

at the core of your being you remain the same following all the commandments and the real purity is not of doing but of being one has to be innocent in the being then who cares about the heavenly pleasures and who cares about paradise?

then paradise is herenow

then it is not a question of tomorrow so i don't teach the purity of so-called moral disciplines i only teach one purity

the purity of changing the gestalt from the mind to the heart becoming more heart-full is becoming pure becoming less mind-full is becoming more pure the moment mind is completely gone and there is only heart -- throbbing, dancing you have arrived home

and that is the moment

the presence of godliness is felt not something outer to you but something within your very soul a flame of your own consciousness purity is a light

mind is always a dark night of the soul there is no dawn in it

the night continues, it is an eternal night darkness is its very nature the heart lives always in the dawn it is always light there

so it is not a question of bringing light to the mind the question is changing

the altitude of your existence changing the plane, the dimension if one remains in the mind one will remain in darkness if one changes from the mind to the heart suddenly the light bursts forth it is like standing in the sun with closed eyes you are in darkness and there is light everywhere you are creating your own darkness 1/08/07

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by closing your eyes

just open the eyes and you start laughing you see the ridiculousness of it all that you were the cause of your darkness that light was always there and you were unnecessarily missing it it was showering on you, available but you were preventing it from reaching you mind is a barrier to light and we are making great efforts to make this mind bigger and bigger the whole educational system consists only of making this mind bigger and bigger one-third of a human life

twenty-five years are wasted just puffing the balloon of the mind bigger and bigger

and it is an empty balloon, there is nothing in it nobody has ever achieved anything in it not a single human being in the whole of history has said, i have attained contentment through mind blissfulness through mind

immortality through mind

truth through mind, love through mind not a single statement, without any exception.

mind has proved utterly impotent but still we go on carrying the old, rotten tradition of making it bigger and bigger that man is almost crushed underneath it the mind has become mountainous and man is not even able to crawl out of it but because we have created it and because it is only an empty balloon just a pinprick is enough

nothing else is needed

sannyas is that pinprick

and the balloon bursts

and suddenly there is rejoicing as the air goes out of the balloon the hot air -- and it is very hot --

suddenly a cool breeze starts arising in you instead of darkness, light instead of a burdensome life, a dancing quality instead of living for tomorrow the joy in the moment

the freshness of the moment 1/08/07

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the beauty of the moment, possesses you and to be possessed by the moment is all there is nothing more to it the greatest experience in life is the experience of being nothing, nobody people are trying to be somebody in some way or other

in worldly ways, in other-worldly ways through money, power, prestige, knowledge, austerities

but the desire is the same to be somebody in particular, to be at the top it is such a childish game the politicians are involved in it the saints are involved in it the politicians can be forgiven because they are basically stupid people but how to forgive the saints?

they are also on the same trip of being somebody special

when jesus was leaving his disciples the last question they asked was now that you are leaving us you are being caught and you may be crucified we have only one enquiry

that in the kingdom of god, of course you will be at his right hand but who will be next to you?

do you see these fools?

their desire, the whole ego trip sannyas is seeing the foolishness of the ego trip and the very seeing is transforming the moment you see that it is utterly stupid there is no point in being somebody one is perfectly beautiful as one is and the more you are a nobody the more you are at ease, relaxed the more you are a nothingness the less there is any possibility of worry, anxiety, anguish nothingness cannot be stirred into a worry for what?

there is nothing to lose

there is nothing to be afraid of there is nothing to miss

the man who has achieved nothingness 1/08/07

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is really the richest man in the world he is really in the kingdom of god he is really an emperor

and we are all entitled to achieve it we just have to be a little more clear about the whole trip in which we have been forced by the society, by the parents by the people who have surrounded us by the people who have conditioned us we just have to see the point that we have been dragged

into an unnecessary turmoil then drop out of it and drop in drop out of the game of the ego and drop into your pure nothingness and suddenly a revolution, a sudden transformation we have called this experience enlightenment buddhahood, awakening

the ego trip is a dream

the moment you are ready to be nothing the dream disappears

and then each moment

has such a crystal clarity to it such immense truth in it

that one cannot feel cheated by existence one cannot doubt even for a single moment that life is meaningless

life becomes so full of meaning so brim-full, overflowing

that for the first time consciousness starts growing flowers

for the first time the spring comes hence i have chosen the colour for my sannyas the colour of the spring in the east mind can compose many songs but they will be only compositions not creations words can be arranged

in a certain rhythm, in a certain metre but that is only the appearance of a song that is not the way to arrive at the real song it is a plastic flower, put together it has not grown, it has not blossomed in the east we have two words for the poet one is kavi which literally means the poet another is rishi which means a seer the poet belongs to the mind 1/08/07

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he composes songs, music

creates dances, sculpture, painting the seer moves to a different centre of his being from the circumference to the centre and when he is at his own heart the purest spot in his being, the virgin spot where nobody can enter except oneself which is absolutely private uncontaminated by any influence from the outside there is no way to condition it no way even to touch it

when one reaches

that purest virgin spot of one's own being then creativity erupts

then one does not compose a song one simply sings it, hums it it comes of its own accord then the dance happens

you are just a witness to it, not a doer then creativity becomes your very life then whatsoever you touch starts changing into gold you may be appreciated or not -- that is irrelevant people may understand, may not understand there is every possibility that you may not be understood you may be misunderstood

more often than understood because you will be speaking a totally different language and people understand the language of the mind and you will be speaking

some foreign tongue to them of the heart

mind is all sound, sound signifying nothing a tale told by an idiot, much ado about nothing but mind creates much dust, so much that in the clouds of mind-dust one tends to forget everything it is very clever and efficient in creating fuss for any reason or no reason at all -- it is fussy if there is some reason -- good if there is no reason, it can always invent it is very inventive but it goes on making noise if you watch your mind

you can see how much noise it makes continuously, day in, day out, year in, year out it starts kicking in the mother's womb till it kicks the bucket, goes on kicking 1/08/07

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but just close by it there is a small spot which is absolutely silent which makes no fuss, no noise and that is your heart

and that is your purity

that is your innocence

and out of that innocence

is the experience of godliness out of that innocence the celestial music is born the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

there is no conflict

hence there are no hands clapping there is no clash, otherwise it will also create noise it is absolute silence, but silence is not dead the silence has its own rhythm its own vibe

its own music

its own beauty

and its own blessing

hence in the east it is called anahat nad

anahat nad means unstruck sound the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

one hand clapping does not make any sound but it indicates something tremendously significant there is no clash, no noise but there is music, great music here is a dance in the heart the very heartbeat

starts having a subtle rhythm to it you cannot share it with anybody else it is unsharable

it is a secret

you can experience it, you can live it but you cannot say it

you can show it but you cannot say it hence my sannyasins will feel embarrassed 1/08/07

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everywhere in the world

whenever people ask

what has happened to you

why have you gone crazy?

they will not be able to answer it is impossible to answer they have tasted something, they know the taste it is on their tongue, but it is inexpressible they have fallen into a certain dance they have enjoyed a certain silence but it is not possible to put it into words all words are inadequate

but who cares?

when somebody asks you

what has happened to you?

sing a song, dance, laugh, roll on the ground do something

rather than saying, show something show your bliss, show your benediction maybe, if somebody is still alive something in him may respond something may be triggered in him something may start synchronising with you maybe your laughter

can trigger a belly-laughter in him maybe your song can hit a new space in his being you may become a catalytic agent that's all sannyasins can do my sannyasins cannot be missionaries they can only be catalytic agents The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #7

Chapter title: None

7 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103075

ShortTitle: CLAPP07

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a life without love is life without life itself it is just lived at the minimum somehow lived, in fact a drag it is boredom, meaninglessness it is simply waiting for nothing to happen waiting for godot

and godot never comes -- what comes is death the man without love is born dead lives dead, dies dead

it is a long process of death but love brings a transformation love is like spring

suddenly hidden sources start flowing for the first time one feels the thrill of existence the adventure, the immense call of the unknown and a tremendous desire to plunge into the ocean of existence that's exactly what love is a longing to meet with the whole and in that very longing

life starts reaching higher peaks it starts becoming a living fragrance there is no other purpose

life itself is its own end my sannyasins have to remember it continuously because for centuries

the people's minds have been diverted life has been made a means to some other end and life is not a means

it is an end unto itself

and the moment life is an end unto itself it is nothing but pure love love is the taste of the real person the authentic person

his vibe, his flavour, his fragrance love brings many gifts, unaccountable gifts an unending procession of gifts these are a few of the gifts of love one becomes just -- only love can be just love cannot be unjust by its very nature it cannot harm, it can only help it cannot be prejudicial; it is absolutely impartial it never uses the other as a means 1/08/07

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that is reducing the other into a thing into a commodity

love respects

love has no possibility

of ever reducing people into things they are respected as divine beings as personifications of godliness and you cannot be unjust

when you think of the other as divine and the moment your life is full of love and justice

there is glory, there is great rejoicing in your being there is a simple law of life if you harm others

you cannot be happy, you cannot be blissful if you harm others

the harm will come back to you multiplied if you help, the same is also true whatsoever you give comes back a thousandfold so once a person starts sharing his love, his joy he is showered by existence from all nooks and corners flowers start raining on him he becomes enthroned

he becomes glorious

there is no other glory

compared to the glory of love even the greatest emperor is a pauper in comparison to a lover

he may have all the riches of the world he may have conquered the whole world but he has missed his own heart deep down he is just darkness there is no light within him his life may be surrounded by many many pleasures but deep down there is a wound a cancerous wound

his love energy has not become a flower and when love energy remains unflowered it turns into a wound

it turns into pus, it stinks hence the politicians stink, they are bound to they are the people without love the great conquerors

from alexander to napoleon, to adolf hitler they all stink

1/08/07

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for the simple reason

that they have missed flowering their spring has not happened love is my simple message

no other gospel is needed

love is enough, more than enough it is the whole alchemy of transformation mind knows no contentment

because mind is without love and contentment is a by-product of love mind is logic -- logic is basically discontentment it is argument with existence, it is not agreement even if logicians agree, they only agree to disagree their fundamental approach is of disagreement mind is in a constant fight and of course, fighting with the whole is doomed from the very beginning --

you cannot win

how can a small wave of the ocean hope to win against the ocean?

the very desire is simply insane and mind breeds all kinds of insanities but they all start from the seed of discontentment a sannyasin has to shift his energy from the mind to the heart from logic to love

the moment you are loving

you are starting to agree with existence that's what love is all about an agreement not reluctantly done, joyously done not unwilling done, but dancingly done with great relish and gusto as if one is coming home

the existence is our home

the very idea of struggle and fight is stupid there is no point in it

i teach harmony

be in tune with existence

with trees, with the wind, with the rain, with the sun be in tune

and wherever you find yourself disagreeing remember you are at fault

existence is always right

so whenever you are miserable you are wrong 1/08/07

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drop your wrong

don't try to correct existence, that cannot be done that which cannot be done should not be tried because that is a futile effort don't be american

the american philosophy is try it and try it and try it again i say, try it, try it, but don't try it again otherwise you will look silly twice is enough, thrice is too much and if you go on trying then you are just being stupid give it a try, perhaps a second try but then enough is enough

then stop trying and start enjoying struggle is not the way of love, harmony, accord.

the moment you are in accord with the whole life becomes a tremendous contentment so deep, so unfathomable, so immeasurable so indefinable, so inexpressible and we are all searching for it but searching in a wrong way, in the american way it can be found right now

but you have to put your struggle aside relax

and suddenly it is there

i know only one prayer

the prayer that comes as a shadow of a loving heart a by-product of love, a consequence of love it has not to be done, it happens it is not addressed to anybody it is an unaddressed thankfulness to the whole to all that is

and remember, it is unexpressed words won't help

words are very small and love is vast as vast as the sky itself

you cannot force the sky into a word so all prayers which consist of words are man's inventions

but there is a prayer which does not consist of words which has never been said

which will never be said

but which has happened many times and will go on happening many times 1/08/07

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it happens when you are in total love when there is nobody holding back when you have gone completely into the whole with no conditions, with no strings attached with no demands

when you have relaxed yourself surrendered yourself to the ultimate unity of things to the celestial music

and you have just become a simple note in it no longer carrying any separatehood just a simple harmonious part of it then there is prayer

that prayer can only be defined as unexpressed gratefulness

unsaid thankfulness

compassion without love is hypocrisy one can practise it, cultivate it that's what christian missionaries go on doing all over the world

it is compassion without love of course there are motives hidden behind it because love is missing

so some motive is bound to be there the motive is to reach heaven to attain to heavenly pleasures it is a business, it is a bargain here we sacrifice

there we will get more than we are sacrificing with all the interest due

and here is only a small life and there you will attain to pleasures for infinity, for eternity it is really a lottery

giving just a small coin

and then getting millions of dollars out of it it is gambling

but these gamblers

have been praised down the ages as saints

they are simply business people to me compassion without love is pseudo and has been the cause

of many mischievous deeds on the earth love has to be the beginning of real compassion when it comes out of love then there is no motive 1/08/07

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then it is unmotivated

and anything unmotivated has a sheer beauty when you do something

just because you love to do it for no other reason at all nothing has to be gained out of it you may in fact lose something but you cannot gain anything still you want to do it

because it is such a joy to do it then compassion is a healing force then whomsoever it touches it heals then whomsoever it comes close to it transforms so i don't say cultivate compassion i say be loving

and compassion will come of its own accord when you find it following you of its own accord then welcome it, but never cultivate it never try to be of service to people these do-gooders are the most dangerous people in the world

these are the criminals

in the name of beautiful words they are dominating humanity of course when you serve somebody you oblige him you become higher, he becomes lower you have really humiliated him but love never humiliates

in fact it exalts

so it is not a question of serving it is a question of living your love it has nothing to do with the other it has something to do with your innermost being you are so full of love that you want to share it just like a rain cloud

so full of rainwater it wants to shower it is not much concerned where, on whom it will shower on the rich it will shower on the poor it will shower on the rocks it will shower on the soil it will simply shower

unconcerned on whom it is bestowing on whom it is showering its richness in fact it is not obliging anybody on the contrary it is being obliged by everybody whosoever is receiving its showers is obliging him 1/08/07

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a real man of love

is continuously obliged by everybody whosoever greets his love, receives his love it is a totally different dimension it starts by being loving

not by being compassionate all the religions in the world have been doing just the opposite they teach you to be compassionate then you will be loving

i say to you

be loving

compassion comes on its own love should not be an idea it should be just pure living one should not think of love as a far away ideal that has to be achieved somewhere in the future, tomorrow

it should be something immediate like breathing

you don't postpone it for tomorrow you don't say, i will breathe when i have time or when i retire

or when i am finished with other important things breathing can wait

but that's what people are doing with love and love is exactly the breathing of the soul just as breathing is for the body love is for the soul

don't postpone it

not even for a single moment if there is a choice

whether to postpone breathing or love then postpone breathing

because you will not lose much but don't postpone love

that is the very essential core of life each moment

find ways of how to breathe love and there are infinite possibilities one just has to look for them and they are there, they have always been there we have been avoiding

a sannyasin starts changing his valuation he changes his gestalt

it is like you are reading a book 1/08/07

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you jump from one word to another word and you always miss the gap between the words which is always there

you can change the gestalt you can start jumping from one gap to another gap leaving the words

and then you will be surprised it is the same book

but the message is totally different then you can read the gita, bible, koran but you will be reading the same book the book of nothingness

then whether you read hebrew or latin or greek does not matter

because you are reading only the intervals which are neither hebrew nor sanskrit nor greek nor latin

which are simply gaps

the same is true about our life we have to change our gestalt we look for misery, we find it start looking for joy and you will find it we look for thorns and they are there start looking for flowers

and they have always been there just waiting for you to look at them love should be our continuous choice find out ways and means in every situation so that you can love

even a person who is very repulsive to you may have something that you can love in him once it happened

a man died

he was the worst man of the town, the most hated and the ritual of the town was that before a person can be burned somebody should speak in praise of him but there was nothing to say in praise of that man everybody was looking at each other what to say

because whatsoever you say will be wrong and nobody wanted to say anything in praise of that ugly man; he has been such a torture they were all feeling relieved that at last they were finished with him but the burial could not start finally, one man stood up

and he said, this beautiful man is dead he was beautiful

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as far as his four other brothers are concerned remember those four who are still alive in comparison to those four he was the noblest person you can think about and the whole crowd clapped and appreciated this was a truth

they had completely forgotten about the four who are still alive you can always find something even the worst man

you just have to look for it and you can also find the worst in the best man you just have to look for it it is only a question of outlook a sannyasin has to choose all those aspects of life and people

which create a response in you of love so slowly your life becomes a continuum of love from one moment to the other it starts growing deeper and deeper into love when you've reached the unfathomable you have come home

unfathomable love is the ultimate secret of life but the journey begins now love is the most beautiful phenomenon in existence flowers are beautiful

rainbows are beautiful

stars are beautiful

but they are nothing compared to love because they are all material manifestations love is the manifestation of consciousness it is the flower of consciousness it is all the colours of the rainbow but its constituent factors are not material but non-material

it is all the light of the stars, but stars die sooner or later they will go out of life continuously they are fading out love has an eternal source of light it never dies, it is immortal hence its beauty is divine to love is the only religion there is all other religions are a hindrance to love naturally, because they are competitors in the 1/08/07

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marketplace

they are all against love

they know certainly that if love wins then mohammedanism, christianity, hinduism all are gone

so they will not allow love they will cripple and paralyse love in every possible way

that's what they have been doing for thousands of years

they have poisoned the very source of love my effort here is to purify your sources of love to bring you back the gift that you had brought with you from your very childhood

it has to be refined, purified, it has to be reclaimed once you have started living just a little bit of love and that's enough that small flame of love is enough then the whole forest of your life will be aflame love can be lived but cannot be known love can be experienced but cannot be measured love can be tasted but cannot be expressed it is indefinable

it is the most mysterious experience in existence and the most glorious

and the most exalted

and the most ecstatic

but the strange calamity is that people go on looking for everything except love yes, they talk about love but it is mere talk they don't live it

they want love but they don't give it and when everybody wants and nobody gives how can it happen?

love has to be given

and then it comes of its own accord existence is not miserly

if we give and share it returns back but one should not give

in order to get something back because that is not giving one should simply give for the sheer joy of giving and then it comes

and it comes as a great surprise because you were not expecting you were not hoping

you were not waiting

and suddenly the guest has come and he has knocked on the door

1/08/07

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in india we have a very beautiful word for the guest it does not exist in any other language in india our word for the guest is atiti atiti means

one who comes without informing you if he informs you he is not a guest if he gives you a date: that i am coming on this date, by this train then he is not a guest

because you are already prepared then you are going to receive him at the station and...

then you are ready, then it is not a surprise the guest is a guest

only when suddenly out of nowhere the door opens and the guest enters and for a moment you cannot believe your own eyes that moment of surprise

comes in the life of a sannyasin every day every moment

because he is not expecting anything he is simply giving

and each moment brings thousands of miracles and these miracles go on

becoming bigger and bigger life becomes a sheer celebration love is the secret of it all love is the greatest treasure the most precious benediction and it is our birthright, everybody is entitled to it it is not something that needs rare talents it is not something like painting or music or poetry love is a natural, spontaneous phenomenon to all beings

so nobody is more endowed or less endowed as far as love is concerned existence is absolutely communistic all are equal

but the strange thing is

that very few people

are even aware of their treasures and the reason is that we are looking outside and love resides inside

we are wandering everywhere in search of it and it is just sitting

at the very centre of our being 1/08/07

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hence all that is needed is a simple process of returning home

a one-hundred-eighty degree turn towards oneself that's what i call meditation meditation is looking in

the moment you look in

the world of love opens up and immediately you are blessed immediately all poverty disappears all longing, all discontent disappears immediately, instantly

all that you wanted always to happen, has happened one simply starts dancing

in sheer thankfulness

one cannot say anything about love or whatsoever can be said

will be only approximately true, not really true it will be at the most only a far away echo a reflection of the moon in the lake but not the truth of love itself the truth of love is basically experienced in silence utter silence

one has to be so silent

that not even a ripple of thought moves inside so silent that one has lost even hearing the sound of one's own heart beats so silent that all noise of the world within and without

has completely ceased

just a pure nothingness prevails in that nothingness one hears the unheard one experiences the unimaginable that silence is not a dead silence it is very alive

more alive than anything you have ever known it is full of subtle music but the music does not consist of sound it is soundless music

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

once that Sound

of one hand

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Clapping

is heard

one has heard all the buddhas all the awakened ones

all the masters

one has heard all that is worth hearing one has tasted the nectar of life so the preparation for love is preparation for a deep silence a virgin silence

and it is simply possible

it is not an arduous phenomenon it is not like rising

towards a high mountainous peak it is far more easy

it is totally different, just the opposite a glacier descending

from the peaks of the mountains slowly

without any sound

without any fuss and fury

silently sliding towards the valley it is just like that

lao tzu says, it is like

the river going towards the ocean he calls it the watercourse way it is easier for the river to go to the ocean

because the water is always searching and seeking the lowest point it is always seeking the deepest valley it is not a search to be the first but to be the last

and when one wants to be the last there is no problem at all when one wants to be the first then there is trouble jesus says, blessed are those who can stand last in the line up to that point i agree with him absolutely agree with him

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blessed are those who are ready to be the last but then he adds something which drives christians nuts all over the world then he says

blessed are those who are to be the last for theirs shall be the kingdom of god now the motive enters in

now it becomes a business proposal to be the last means

if you want to be the first in the kingdom of god then be the last

it is not the way of being the last if i have to say it i will say blessed are the last because they are the last The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #8

Chapter title: None

8 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103085

ShortTitle: CLAPP08

Audio:

No

Video:

No

the experience of bliss is not something arduous it is not something upstream on the contrary it is a question of relaxing, resting it is not something to be achieved and cultivated so those who want to be with the crowd it is already there, it has only to be tasted hence the only thing

that is preventing people from being blissful is a courageous heart

people are being very cowardly they are being taught to be cowardly their whole pattern of life is underlined with a current of fear this is our politics, religion, culture, society it depends on fear and exploitation of fear hence the moment somebody decides to be blissful nobody can prevent him

no force, no power can prevent him 1/08/07

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just a little courage

courage to risk, courage to be alone courage to go against the crowd, the mob courage not to follow and imitate the fools they are all miserable

and they would like you also to be just like them and they will create every kind of hindrance if you start being different the crowd never likes anybody who is different from it

he looks like a foreigner, he is suspicious, suspected he cannot be trusted -- he is not one of us that is the logic of the crowd so those who want to be with the crowd can never be blissful

then their destiny is closed they will live in misery and die in misery it is our decision, it is our life it is nobody else's business and one should not lose one's life just for the sheer sake of conformity convention, respectability once you are ready to drop all that nonsense the dawn has come

suddenly the light bursts forth and life becomes a beautiful dance there is only one religion and that is the religion of bliss the moment you are blissful you are religious if you are not blissful you are irreligious that is my definition

simple but of immense implications you need not be a christian or a hindu or a mohammedan to be religious the whole earth is full of these people and there is no religious quality anywhere all these religions have been quarrelling fighting, killing each other in the name of god

in the name of love

in the name of peace

this is such a ridiculous situation that it seems unbelievable that for thousands of years we have lived with this situation and we have not yet been able to change it it is so illogical, irrational, so absurd 1/08/07

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my message is very simple

just be blissful

and don't bother about dogmas, creeds whether there is a god or not whether there is an after-life or not these are all irrelevant questions what matters is: right now are you blissful or not?

if you are blissful then everything that is true is going to happen to you

there is no need to search for it it will come of its own accord if you are miserable

you can go on gathering knowledge esoteric, occult and all kinds of bullshit but it is of no use

you remain miserable all the same you talk about chakras and kundalini and the rising energy and the planes and all the kinds of rubbish people go on talking about these are just diversions

somehow they are trying to distract themselves from their misery

i am against all occultism all so-called hidden esoteric secrets i teach the open secret be blissful that is the only true religion and the person who is blissful cannot harm anybody the blissful person is a benediction to the whole existence

bliss is our very nature, it is our eternal law in fact we cannot lose it

at the most we can only forget about it so the only question is to remember nothing has to be achieved but only remembered

... a forgotten language

each child is born in deep bliss and then we start teaching him the language of misery

and we burden him with so many things that slowly slowly his natural, spontaneous being is covered with thousands of layers he forgets all about it

he forgets about himself

1/08/07

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the function of the master is to remind you that you may have forgotten it, but it is still there just a little digging is needed just as there are vicious circles there are blissful circles too in a vicious circle one wrong leads to another wrong in a blissful circle one bliss leads to another bliss it is only a question of choosing the right circle for your life people are living in vicious circles for example, if somebody finds it difficult to fall asleep

he tries hard to go into sleep he tosses, turns, repeats mantras counts sheep, from one to hundred and then backwards

but whatsoever he is doing will create more sleeplessness because sleep is not something that you can bring about by effort

now he is getting into a vicious circle the more he endeavours to bring about sleep the more he will feel himself awake the more he feels himself awake the more he will try new methods transcendental meditation, etcetera to fall asleep

and this can go on ad nauseum in the morning he will be far more tired than if he had simply accepted the fact that sleep is not there

so it is not there and rested there was every possibility he may have fallen asleep

because he would not have created the vicious circle

the same is true about bliss, about everything just a small beginning

and then it triggers bigger phenomena my own observation is that if you can be blissful about a single thing in your life that's enough

and it will lead you into new dimensions, new peaks 1/08/07

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so whatsoever you love, whatsoever you like do it, enjoy it, enjoy it totally don't think about whether it is something great or not

it doesn't matter

what really matters is your enjoyment if you can enjoy anything totally you are creating a circle of bliss it will lead to new points, new departures higher peaks

and soon you will be surprised that a small beginning

has brought you to the ultimate hence start with the immediate, whatsoever it is just sipping a cup of tea is enough if you can enjoy it totally it will lead you to the ultimate samadhi there are not small things and big things in life only intelligent people and unintelligent people the intelligent person

transforms everything into bliss and the unintelligent

transforms everything into misery blissfulness has never been thought of as a virtue although it is the fundamental virtue they have been talking about character truthfulness, sincerity

humbleness, compassion

service, non-violence

and a thousand and one things as virtues but a very strange fact is they all drop one thing consistently blissfulness

no religion counts it as a virtue because these so-called religions cannot allow people to be blissful they want you to be miserable and all their virtues

create more misery in you than before it is very obvious

you can find ordinary people more joyous than your so-called religious people you will find sinners more innocent than your saints for the simple reason that the saint has been cultivating virtues he has cultivated a thick facade around himself like an iron wall, he lives behind it he is imprisoned in his own ideas 1/08/07

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he is a prisoner of his own stupidity i don't teach any other virtue because to me the fundamental virtue is bliss everything else is just an aspect of it if one is blissful

i cannot conceive that he can be untruthful that is impossible

it is not in the very nature of things if one is blissful he cannot harm he cannot hurt if one is blissful he is bound to be compassionate inevitably

so to me all the virtues

are by-products of blissfulness and blissfulness is the only virtue which is not a by-product of anything else there are two kinds of discipline one that is imposed from the outside i am against it, it creates slaves and we have enough of slaves in the world we need a few free spirits to bring a little new breeze into existence

to bring a few new insights new splendours, new dimensions i teach the second kind of discipline which arises out of your own understanding the first discipline has a set structure the second discipline is liquid it changes moment-to-moment because life changes

how can you have ready-made answers to situations which are constantly changing?

at this moment one thing may be true the next moment it may not be true at all in one situation it may be right in another situation the same thing may be wrong hence i say, be alert, be aware be blissful and act out of your blissfulness awareness, alertness, meditativeness rather than acting out of fixed principles act out of spontaneity, naturally respond to the situation

and then whatsoever you do is right and of course it is right not because it is written in some scripture 1/08/07

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it is right because it fits to the situation it is right because it is the adequate response and every adequate response gives tremendous contentment whenever you can act in a totally alive way you will feel immense fulfilment following it and that is bliss

pleasure is momentary

happiness is a little more than momentary but not much

the difference is only of degrees it lasts a little longer than pleasure but sooner or later it ends bliss is eternal; it begins but it never ends to know bliss is to know

the ultimate fabric of existence and that is our longest desire that is our search -- knowingly, unknowingly everybody is searching for it unless we have found the eternal we will be homeless

only the eternal can suffice less than that won't do

so pleasures one can have but soon one becomes fed up, tired, bored they become repetitive

happiness one can have

but how long can one go on playing with toys?

beautiful, but toys are toys one needs something more substantial more nourishing -- and that's what bliss is and the miracle is that it is already within you you have not to go anywhere to find it in fact just the opposite has to be done you have to pull yourself from everywhere so for few moments at least you can be within yourself that's what i call meditation withdrawing yourself from the whole world for a few moments, just to rest and relax in the very pool of your consciousness once you have started tasting the joy of that rest you are coming closer to home, to the eternal life can either be a tale told by an idiot 1/08/07

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or it can be a tale told by a buddha it all depends on you

if you remain asleep, unconscious your life will be just accidental like driftwood

at the mercy of the winds and the waves meaningless

drifting towards death, becoming every day more and more gloomy and dark but if you become a little alert and awakened the quality of life immediately changes then it is no more accidental it starts having a subtle meaning to it that meaning is bliss and then life starts turning into a beautiful story a parable of immense dimensions then a single man's life contains all the scriptures of the world then one can read the whole story of existence within one's own heartbeat but for that, one condition has to be fulfilled one has to become a little more awake a little more conscious

blissfulness grows

in the same proportion as consciousness it is always symmetrical to consciousness if one is miserable that shows he is unconscious if one is blissful that shows he is conscious if one is absolutely blissful that shows one has arrived the only thing that can be called divine is blissfulness

the only thing that proves the existence of godliness is blissfulness no other argument can prove it there have been many arguments for the existence of the divine but they can all be refuted, they have been refuted man has not been able to find a single argument which is irrefutable but there have been a few people in the world the very salt of the earth whose existence cannot be refuted whose presence cannot be refuted, whose presence leaves such an impact of blissfulness that even if you want to deny it you cannot deny it

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in spite of yourself you have to accept and that something more

is what we are trying to impart here that something more, that quality, xyz i call it blissfulness -- it can only be imparted hence the beauty of the love affair between a master and a disciple it is simply a love affair it is the coming together of two hearts in deep trust, in communion so close, so open and vulnerable that the flame from one heart

can jump into the other heart and suddenly the unlit lamp is lit and the miracle has happened it happens suddenly

it is not a gradual process at all pleasure needs two persons happiness also needs duality bliss does not need two persons or duality one is enough alone

it happens in one's deepest aloneness hence it is called

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

in pleasure you will need a partner if you enjoy food you will need food if you enjoy music then music is needed you have to depend on something and any dependence hurts

and any dependence becomes a bondage and one cannot forgive the person to whom one becomes dependent that's why lovers quarrel

the basic cause of quarrel is that they feel they are encaged by each other that they cannot be happy without each other that hurts, that hurts very much that i have become dependent, addicted it is like drug addiction

one feels the slavery

and how can one be blissful in slavery we have to search and seek within ourselves a space where bliss happens but independently it needs nothing else for it to happen 1/08/07

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it happens as our own innermost source that's why bliss brings with it freedom, truth, and a sense of immense grandeur, splendour one never gets fed up with bliss and the blissful person becomes capable of living with other people also blissfully because now he is no longer dependent on anything he can enjoy pleasures, he can enjoy happinesses because he knows that he has reached to a state which is always available to him where he can always go

leaving the whole world behind he has entered

into that inner circle of his being where nobody can interfere where no bondage exists

where there is only pure music and poetry and dance and celebration

anahato is one of the most beautiful names it is very significant

only those who have known that state are the buddhas

so try to hear

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

it is there; one just has to become a little silent and it is heard

once heard, it is forever yours The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #9

Chapter title: None

9 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103095

ShortTitle: CLAPP09

Audio:

No

Video:

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1/08/07

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the most significant thing to remember is that contentment and satisfaction are not synonymous

satisfaction is a false coin it pretends to be contentment but it is not it is really just the opposite of contentment one feels discontented

but to remain in discontentment hurts to cover that wound one creates a pseudo climate around oneself of satisfaction and that's what the so-called religious people have been doing for centuries this is not the way to find truth the only way to find truth is to go through your discontent without hiding it, without escaping from it the very understanding of your discontentment brings contentment

and then there is a totally new being, a new birth the noble one is born

satisfaction is a deception contentment is a resurrection but before the resurrection can happen one has to go through crucifixion if one avoids crucifixion

then one will be avoiding finally the ultimate rejoicing of being resurrected i teach contentment not satisfaction and the way to contentment is to encounter all your discontents without any fear, without any hiding to know your discontentment in its total nudity is the beginning of a new life man can create in two ways either out of a state of discontentment frustration, failure

or through a state of absolute contentment the quality of the creativity is going to be totally different picasso may be a great painter but his painting shows his discontentment with life not contentment

it shows his innermost insanity as if he has vomited his insanity on the canvas of course he is a great artist 1/08/07

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but whatsoever he is creating is a little bit insane he is simply catharting

it helps him, he becomes unburdened but it doesn't help others they will become burdened

the whole of modern art is rooted in discontentment hence it has lost the ancient glory, the classic glory of creativity

there is a vast difference between the people who made the taj mahal or the temples of khajuraho or the pyramids of egypt

and the people who are creating modern art the gap seems to be unbridgeable because the sources are different it is said in zen

that before you can create you have to come to a point of absolute silence then whatsoever you do will bring something of the divine into the world you will become a vehicle

then it will not be just a mind product it will be something transcendental and that's my effort here

i am all for creativity

but not this kind of creativity that is going around the world, neurotic, psychotic i would like my sannyasins to become so peaceful so silent

so utterly at home with existence that there is no complaint in their being but only gratitude

out of that gratitude flows real creativity and that is the greatest joy in life to contribute something to existence to make it a little more beautiful than you had found it

to spread a few more smiles in the world to make the world more blessed, blissful in a state of better celebration, festivity if this can be done then the man is religious to me religion has nothing to do with churches and temples and rituals it has something to do

with the energy called creativity but before it can happen

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one has to prepare one's being and contentment is the preparation be contented -- whatsoever is, is good whatsoever is, is perfect, don't ask for more relax into it, rejoice in it and you will be surprised

the more vou relax, the more you rest in it the more you become insightful of the mysterious of the miraculous that surrounds you a moment comes when you simply disappear in your own immense contentment and when you are not, god is when you are not, creativity is to me god is not a creator but only

the energy called creativity the cowardly is always complaining to complain, intelligence is not needed to complain, courage is not needed to complain is a very mediocre activity anybody can do it

hence everybody is doing it but to be contented, to feel grateful, to feel blessed great intelligence is required courage is required, insight is required and the moment you start looking into the depths of life

a great surprise arises

you cannot believe it, it is incredible what has been given is simply beyond our comprehension

and we have not earned it either it is a sheer gift from the whole to see life, love, freedom, joy as gifts from the divine

makes one feel contented

and the atmosphere of inner contentment is the atmosphere of a real temple temples don't exist on the outside one has to become a temple and the only way to become a temple is to create in your interiority an immense gratitude for all that has happened to you for all that is happening to you and it is incalculable, immeasurable but certainly one has to be courageous for it 1/08/07

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courageous

because the whole crowd is complaining it is always asking for more it needs guts to say, i don't ask for more that in fact whatsoever is given to me is more than i could have asked for in the first place and from that very moment

a transformation starts happening your life becomes

more and more attuned to existence it becomes more and more a dance and that has to be the flavour of my sannyasins a deep inner contentment

and on the outside

the manifestation of that contentment in celebration, in celebrating the day-to-day life

the moment-to-moment life

the ordinary life

once you are ready

to celebrate the ordinary life it is no more ordinary at all there are people who think that unless you attain to the ultimate bliss you cannot be contented

they have taken a wrong standpoint from the very beginning

they will remain discontented forever contentment

has to be the first step of the journey contentment

simply means a non-egoistic attitude the ego is always asking for more it always needs more and more decorations it is never satisfied

it is not in its nature to be satisfied the ego is a beggar

and the ego can go on begging in this world it can start begging in the other world too a sannyasin has to start as an emperor not as a beggar

that has to be his first step 1/08/07

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and that's what i mean by contentment the moment you say

i am immensely happy with whatsoever is with the stars and the clouds and the trees and the people and with myself i have no grudge, no guilt no desire to be somebody else no desire to be somewhere else i rejoice whatsoever is the case.

immediately

you are transformed into an emperor and then bliss is not far away in fact it will come following you you need not search for it anutosh means contentment

dhyan means meditation

they are equivalent, synonymous there exists a subtle synchronicity between them if you are contented

there is no need to meditate at all contentment will become your meditation naturally, spontaneously

or vice versa -- if you are meditative, silent then contentment will become a by-product one can begin from either end it is in fact one phenomenon two ends of the same line

the easiest is to begin with contentment because there is so much to be contented with the whole universe provides millions of opportunities to be contented with those who cannot do it

they have to start by meditating meditation is an effort

you have to sit silently, watchfully, relaxedly to calm down your mind, your whole inner noise but if one starts with contentment it is far more simple

looking at the sky full of stars suddenly you feel so contented --

what more can there be?

it cannot be improved upon the starry night is so breathtaking the sunset for a moment stops your heartbeat a bird on the wing and suddenly your mind is not there

these are natural glimpses of meditation my suggestion is watch life and its beauties get more and more merged into existence 1/08/07

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and meditation will come naturally if it is not possible then only make an effort, a deliberate effort to be silent but that has always to be the second thing when the easier course is available don't follow the arduous; it is unnecessary follow the watercourse way there is no need to go upstream, go with the river and this very moment you can feel contentment if i say meditate

you will have to decide when to start tomorrow, tomorrow morning fix the alarm and tomorrow morning...

but if you understand

what i am saying about contentment then it is there, right now this very moment is so full, so overwhelmingly full that one can easily get lost in it anutoshi means one who is absolutely contented so i am not leaving anything for you i am simply declaring

you can relax into it, nothing has to be done the very idea of doing

is an invention of the mind otherwise all is happening but mind is so cunning

that even when things are happening it goes on translating them as if he is doing them

for example people say i am breathing you see the stupidity?

nobody is breathing; breathing is happening if people were breathing

then it would be impossible for them to die they may continue breathing death may go on knocking on the door and they may go on doing the dynamic meditation then what to do?

they may even start breathing faster we are not breathing

in fact just the opposite is the case we are being breathed, existence is breathing us and that is true about everything when you are hungry you are not hungry it has nothing to do with you, it is simply there and when you eat and you digest it has nothing to do with you it is not that you are digesting it just try for twenty-four hours to digest food 1/08/07

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and you will have indigestion remember constantly where the food has gone now and where it is moving

and go on touching your belly and find places now it must be here

and now the bread is being churned into blood you will go crazy within twenty-four hours everything is happening

that is one of the fundamentals of my approach to life

we are not doers

we are just part of an immense happening so all that is needed on our part is to relax, rejoice, be in tune that's what i mean by absolute contentment then each moment brings so much ecstasy and the moment one feels contentment all problems disappear

as if they had never existed in the first place uncontainable

so immense

that one can simply dance in sheer gratitude my sannyasins are not dancing to attain to god they are not dancing to attain to heavenly pleasures they are dancing just out of sheer contentment there is nothing else to do it is not a means to some end in fact it is the recognition that all is already the case

and we are here

just to celebrate it

we are asleep

our sleep consists of discontentments the only way to wake up is to drop discontentments and it is very easy to drop them because they are futile

even if you carry them

you will never be able to fulfil them

]nobody has ever been able to fulfil his discontentments it is an exercise in sheer futility so the intelligent person

simply drops the whole trip he does not waste his present for any future 1/08/07

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he does not sacrifice this moment for another moment

who knows about the next moment?

in fact the tomorrow never comes so why waste the time that is available to you for something which is not going to come?

but the discontented man lives int he future and the contented man lives in the present and to live in the present is to be awakened there is no other secret to it to live now

to live here is to be awakened the unconscious person lives in dreams he goes on creating new dreams when old dreams fail

he immediately substitutes new dreams for them his life is made not of realities but only of desires the same stuff as dreams are made of he lives in a cocoon of false notions hallucinations, desires, expectations and this is simply a way of committing suicide a sannyasin has to come out of the cocoon he has to drop all nonsense of the mind and be in contact with reality, with that which is and the reality is really fulfilling just a single moment of the contact with reality is far more valuable

than the whole eternity of dreaming it is so nourishing

the method to come in contact with reality is consciousness

because it is unconsciousness that prevents us so the whole work of a sannyasin is to move from unconscious states to conscious states

slowly slowly changing every fibre of one's being from unconsciousness to consciousness and even if you can change a single moment then you have got the key

you can change your whole life only the first moment is a little bit difficult because of our old habits

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for that first moment to happen a certain energy field is needed where many people are trying to become conscious their very fervour

creates a subtle whirlpool of energy around you it starts moving you

that's the whole purpose of a buddhafield that's the purpose of this commune so many people trying to be loving trying to be meditative, trying to be alert create a certain vibe which can possess anybody and once you have tasted a single moment then there is no problem

then you can move on your own the experience of contentment is not a dull experience

it is one of the most brilliant experiences of life just shining like the sun

hence your so-called saints who look dull, stupid, dead are giving enough proof

that they have not tasted contentment they are simply suffocating themselves they have created

a certain kind of satisfaction around themselves but satisfaction is always dull because it is a fabricated thing a manufactured thing

it has no life, it has no song to it but when contentment explodes thousands of songs grow in you so that has to be the criterion of whether you are on the right road or not whether you are moving in the right direction or not if your song starts becoming deeper if your joy becomes more and more intense if your life starts taking a tremendous passionate love quality to it then that is enough proof, ample proof that you are coming closer to home there is a music which is heard only when you have reached

the innermost core of your being utterly contented

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it is not ordinary music

it is not heard by the ears it is heard by the soul itself but it is overwhelming

there is nothing bigger than that the moment one has experienced it one has experienced the vastest expanse of space even the whole sky seems to be very small compared to it

the millions of stars are nothing compared to the inner light and the expanding universe which goes on expanding

every moment with infinite speed is nothing compared to the inner expansion it can only be called music there is no other word

which can adequately describe it the zen people call it

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

it has to be heard

without hearing it life is futile, meaningless one can only vegetate but one cannot really live life begins only with

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

then for the first time you know what it is all about

before it you were just like a robot or a sleepwalker after it your eyes are open your being is open and that opening is the opening of the eternal temple of god it takes you to the innermost shrine of existence and it reveals to you all that is mysterious it makes you capable of releasing your own hidden splendour

and we are all carrying a world, a beyond within and unless it is released one can never feel at ease something will go on missing sannyas is only a scientific endeavour 1/08/07

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to release the hidden splendour of your being to bring that which you have contained all along to fulfilment

to flowering

it is an invitation for the spring The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #10

Chapter title: None

10 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103105

ShortTitle: CLAPP10

Audio:

No

Video:

No

meditation transforms you

into a beloved of the whole existence as the meditator becomes centred, silent, aware the whole existence starts converging upward the same world but no more the same before it was cold, alien

now it is cosy, a home

a man without meditation

lives in the world as a stranger as you enter meditation

you enter a love affair with existence and for love everything is possible even the impossible is not impossible all that is needed is

a deep, profound silence in your being that becomes a magnetic pull then whatsoever is beautiful in existence starts moving towards you

meditation creates gravitation for truth for beauty, for love

for freedom, for godliness for all that is really valuable one need not go searching for anything one has simply to rest in one's being and all that is needed follows in its own course 1/08/07

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meditation is the only magic that has yet been known

and i don't think it can ever be transcended there will not be any magic greater than meditation meditation cannot be a logical enquiry you cannot study it from the outside it is not an object hence no scientific enquiry is possible by its very nature it is a matter of love not of logic the head is incapable of meditation so those who start thinking about meditation studying meditation

go on missing the point

they are starting from a wrong space their very first step has gone wrong and the first step is the most important step it is almost half the journey because the next step follows the first the next step is implied in the first so i want my sannyasins to be reminded again and again

to let meditation be your love affair don't think about it

don't philosophise about it take a plunge

just as one falls in love, fall into meditation then all the mysteries are yours just a moment's thought

and you are thousands of miles away from it no thought and you are it

one cannot expect, one cannot desire one cannot demand

as far as meditation is concerned expecting, demanding, desiring are barriers one can simply wait, utterly relaxed it comes but it comes like a sudden breeze it comes and refreshes you it comes and rejuvenates you it comes and it transforms you but it does not come according to your ideas it does not come according to your prejudices that is something significant never to be forgotten

because the whole functioning of our mind is such that whatsoever we do we do with a motive if we are meditating then we look sideways looking at the clock, expecting 1/08/07

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now it is going to happen

it is time enough

it should happen now

i have been meditating for three days or three months or three years how long can one go on meditating?

enough-is enough

if all these things are going on then you are creating a barricade meditation should be done for its own joy it is an end unto itself

not a means to something else and then the miracle happens but you cannot do it, it happens it comes like a breeze

it surprises you, it wakes you up for a moment you miss a heartbeat because the guest has come so unexpectedly and it is so glorious, so fulfilling so tremendously blissful

its whole beauty depends on its unexpectedness, its surprise millions of people have meditated but very few have reached

for the simple reason that only very few have meditated for its sheer joy

meditation is a state of suspendedness a state of interval

before meditation

you live in the darkness of the mind with all its desires, greeds, angers, jealousies after meditation you live in the world of bliss benediction, truth, freedom but there is a gap between the two when one is in fact nowhere neither here nor there

and that is the most significant passage the mind tries to go back

because that twilight zone is frightening because suddenly all your ideas, all your notions your very ego is getting lost a fear grips one, one

wants to fall back and cling to all the old things at least there was something to cling to meditation is emptiness

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hence the master is needed the most significant function of the master is in the twilight zone

because when the disciple starts falling back which is a natural thing

nothing extraordinary about it it happens to everybody

because the known, the familiar was at least the known and the familiar and now one is simply melting and one knows not what is going to happen next it is almost like death

the death of the old and the new is not born yet that is the moment when the master can go on holding your hand and he can say don't be worried -- the dawn is not far away just look at the east, the sun is rising sometimes the master has to devise things just to keep you occupied in the twilight zone some toys to cling to, some methods, some words so you are not utterly empty as the twilight zone passes by you will be able to see that these are toys and that they have served their function mind is full

full of all that is ugly, it is full of hell and the soul is full

full of all that is beautiful it is full of heaven

between these two fullnesses there is a gap of utter emptiness that's what meditation is

it takes you from the fullness of the ugly mind to the fullness of the beautiful soul but there is no way to escape the gap one has to pass through it and if one knows one can pass joyously then one can even enjoy the interval its silence, its emptiness, its nothingness meditation can be thought of either as silence or as song it can be thought of as silence if you compare it with the mind compared to the mind it is silence but compared to the soul it is a song it is not something dead, it is very alive 1/08/07

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it is not the silence of the cemetery but the silence

of the high altitudes of mountains in that silence

if you have enough sensitivity you can decipher many songs all the creativity that has happened in the world has come through meditation knowingly or unknowingly

all the poetry, all the music, all the dance is possible only if something deep inside you starts bursting forth in celebration you have to come out of seriousness there is no need to be so serious no need to be so sacred, holy learn to laugh, learn to sing and that will help you immensely because the whole existence is a celebration if we are serious then we are not part of the universe the old proverb is right

if you laugh the whole world laughs with you it you weep, if you cry

you weep and cry alone

people have their own problems more than are needed

who wants to participate

with someone who is sad and serious?

so make it a point to drop your seriousness wherever it exists

and it can be dropped because it is unnatural no child is born serious, it is taught by others and my function here is to help you to become a child again

nobody has ever defined meditation as a sense of humour

but to me the sense of humour is the most significant religious quality the person who cannot laugh cannot pray either the person who cannot see existence with all its incredible beauty and also with all its infinite ridiculousness cannot understand life

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and life is god, there is no other god the more you become silent the more you will be able to see things in clear perspective

and then you will be surprised that things are so incredibly beautiful that the whole existence is giggling except foolish man and his foolish saints who are sitting like mummies dead, holding themself together afraid that if they lose control if they start laughing

they will lose all respectability i don't teach my sannyasins to be respectable i teach them to be alive

whatsoever it costs be totally alive even if you have to risk your life it is worth it in fact when a man has something to die for only then has he something to live for always look at the humorous side of existence and you will start getting more and more in tune with yourself and with the world the sense of humour makes a man very ordinary but to me that ordinariness is in fact the most extraordinary phenomenon the desire to be extraordinary is very ordinary everybody wants that

to relax into ordinariness is a very rare phenomenon, very extraordinary and the sense of humour brings you many gifts it is not only a question of laughing at others more fundamentally it is a question of laughing at oneself too if you see your own life and its ridiculousness you will start laughing

what have you been doing? what are you doing?

and if you can start laughing at your own actions a tremendous relief happens and when you can laugh at yourself you cannot be hard on others your so-called saints are very hard on others just for small things

1/08/07

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for example, somebody loves smoking he has to be thrown into hell this is too much... and for eternity he will be thrown alive into hellfire and for eternity he will have to burn there just because he was smoking so he has to smoke for eternity now and what was so wrong with it?

it is everybody's right

if one wants to take smoke in and out it is nobody else's business, nothing is wrong in it but our saints have been too hard for the simple reason

that they had no sense of humour they created hell

i cannot conceive hell

the whole of existence is paradise your silence should not only be silence it should also be laughter it should also be a dance

it should have many dimensions to it and if you meet god anytime tell him a few jokes and he will be far happier with you than with jesus carrying his cross than with your saints going to him with sad faces friedrich nietzsche said god is dead but i suspect he must be hiding from the so-called saints

just look at your saints -- they are such a torture if he is dead

then it cannot have been a normal death he must have committed suicide surrounded by all kinds of saints particularly the christian saints and all the popes and all the priests...

i cannot conceive god alive in such wrong company god needs better company, he deserves it i am preparing better company for god meditation is the last boundary beyond which nothing can be said beyond which starts the inexpressible beyond which is the truth

but you can reach to that beyond only through meditation

meditation is an antidote

mind is the disease

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meditation is the antidote the moment mind is dropped meditation is also dropped you have come to the ultimate boundary now begins real experiencing so remember

my people are not to cling to meditation it is only medicine

in fact the words meditation and medicine come from the same root:

that which cures

that is the meaning of the root word medicine cures your physical diseases meditation cures your psychological diseases but a medicine is needed only if the disease is there when the disease is finished medicine is of no use there comes a point in the life of a meditator when he drops meditation

because the mind is no more there and there is no need to meditate at all that is the ultimate line

the moment mind and meditation are both dropped you have come home

for the first time you are whole for the first time you are really holy and from this moment real things start happening but nothing can be said about them nothing has been written about them it is the world of the inexpressible meditation is only a pointing of the way a milestone, an arrow

showing you, go on, go on

and then the milestone comes with a zero on it miles have disappeared, arrows have disappeared now the zero has come

that zero is the ultimate search of all sannyas and to achieve it is to achieve all because the zero is synonymous with the whole meditation is a transcendence a transcendence of three things the body, the mind and the heart the body consists of actions the mind of thoughts, the heart of feelings ordinarily we think we are just a combination of these three 1/08/07

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we are not -- we are the fourth these three are there surrounding us but the centre is beyond all three and to find that centre of the cyclone is the whole art of meditation so first one has to transcend the body and it is simple

by just watching and remembering i am not the body

slowly slowly

the remembrance becomes an undercurrent then you don't remember

it is there, you know it

and the same has to be done with the mind i am not my thoughts

thoughts are like birds who come in the evening for an overnight stay in the tree and in the morning they are gone thousands of thoughts

have been taking shelter in your mind and have left

they don't belong to you, they come and go you abide, they don't abide they are changing, you are eternal the remembrance that i am not my thoughts slowly slowly seeps deep into you and becomes a realisation

and then nothing has to be done the body goes on doing its work the mind goes on doing its work only our identification is no more there we attain to a certain detachment a deep aloofness, a certain coolness the most difficult is the third because feelings are very close emotions are very close, moods are very close but if one succeeds with the first two it is not difficult to succeed with the third one should start with the first, the body then with the mind, then with the heart once all these three are transcended for the first time you experience who you are and that experience is liberation liberation from misery

liberation from death

liberation from everything 1/08/07

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from every limitation

to know oneself as transcendental is to know oneself as divine the only problem in front of man is the ego it is the ancientmost problem there is no other problem

and the problem is soluble because it is our own invention, it does not really exist ego is a put-together phenomenon we have manufactured it for certain purposes the society has supported it, the society needs it the simple process is that if you have a false centre it can be controlled

if you have a real centre it cannot be controlled reality cannot be enslaved hence the society has invented a false centre and before the child becomes aware of his real centre

he is handed over a false centre and the false centre is useful for the society politicians, priests, pedagogues they will all be using it

the man who lives with the false centre never becomes aware

of what has gone wrong with him he always feels something is missing he is not what he should be there is a constant subtle awareness that he is false, pseudo, that he is wearing a mask but because he has never seen his original face he cannot discard the mask either because he is afraid

maybe there is no face at all it is better to have a false face than to be faceless who knows what is behind the mask?

behind the mask is the real, original face behind the ego is the real centre but unless we discard the false the real cannot be found

discarding the false is the only way to find the real meditation is a process of elimination go on eliminating whatsoever is false mercilessly go on peeling

whatsoever others have imposed upon you 1/08/07

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and soon you will come to a source which is authentically yours and the moment that source is found life has a different juice to it a different perfume, a different freedom then nothing is felt to be missing there is great contentment, fulfilment one has come to flowering

in the state of egolessness one starts hearing the celestial music the music of the stars

one starts hearing the message of the whole it is wordless

but it is heard and understood it is

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

in fact it is soundless

because one hand clapping

cannot create any sound

but still there is a music to that silence a subtle rhythm in that silence and that rhythm is the rhythm of the universe once you have found it you are no more separate all walls disappear and become bridges these are the two ways to live your life either surrounded by walls disconnected from the whole that is the way of the ego, the way of the mind and the other style of life is making all the walls into bridges connected, part of the whole that is the way of meditation, the way of egolessness the first person lives in hell and only he is responsible, nobody else and the second person lives in heaven again he is responsible, nobody else it is our choice

so don't ever blame stars, don't ever blame fate don't shirk your responsibility don't throw it on anybody else's shoulders 1/08/07

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this is one of the fundamentals of sannyas that i am responsible

for whatsoever is happening to me only i am responsible and nobody else once this responsibility is totally accepted life goes through a revolution a revolution that brings

thousands of blessings and benedictions The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #11

Chapter title: None

11 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103115

ShortTitle: CLAPP11

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man lives in a deep anguish for the simple reason

that he has not the courage to merge with the whole he is afraid

hence he creates all kinds of defenses barriers, walls

he is afraid of losing his identity and that is the greatest fear in the world and just the opposite is the case with courage courage means readiness to lose one's identity the moment you lose your identity all anguish, anxiety disappears then the whole takes over

then you are just an organic part of the total the universal, the eternal courage is needed and trust is needed fear cannot trust, fear always doubts, is suspicious courage can trust, courage can risk courage can put all the doubts aside and the moment you put all the doubts aside 1/08/07

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and are ready to take the plunge into the whole silence starts showering on you the most beautiful experience of life is silence falling like rainwater on you it cleanses you of all dust and dirt it is the only true baptism silence makes you a shrine it creates a temple

in the innermost core of your being without silence

you have not even known your own source your own centre

the noise keeps you occupied, the world is noisy and the mind

which is a by-product of the same world is bound to be noisy

if one wants to know silence and the taste of it then one has to go beyond the world and all its by-products

then one has to search

for the part in oneself which comes from the beyond it is there, it is your very soul a little bit of exploration is needed sannyas is exploring one's own interiority and the moment you have found silence you have found the true temple the true church, the true synagogue all others are inventions of the crafty priests and it is only at the innermost core of your being's altar

that godliness can be experienced you discover silence

and godliness comes as a reward on the surface there seems to be no connection between these two meanings coming with joy, and the outsider the foreigner, the stranger but there is a certain connection deep down the connection is that people are living in misery

that is their way of life

and whenever they see somebody rejoicing he is immediately mistrusted he is immediately mistrusted because he does not belong to the crowd he is an outsider, he is a stranger 1/08/07

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the crowd lives in misery

and only a few people up to now have been able.

it is unfortunate, very sad but a fact and it cannot be denied -- very few people so few that they can be counted on fingers have lived in joy

of course they were all thought of as strangers Jesus is crucified because of that strangeness buddha is stoned

many attempts have been made to kill him for the simple reason that people cannot trust him he seems to be not part of them and the same has been true for others socrates, al hillaj mansoor, sarmad the people who have lived rejoicingly have been tortured by the masses killed by the masses

hence the meaning between those two very different connotations coming with joy and a stranger and joy is everybody's birthright of course man is free not to choose it that's what millions of people have decided to do the reason is

they don't want to go against the crowd mind the crowd mind may create

a thousand and one difficulties for them a sannyasin is committed to be a stranger he is committed to be an outsider he has chosen consciously, i am going to live in joy and the only condition that is needed to fulfil it is silence

if you become a little more silent more and more joy will arise out of you the moment you are totally silent an infinite explosion of joy happens there is a space within you where all dualities disappear where light and darkness are no more separate but one

where life and death are no more separate but one

these things are separate in the mind, in the head the head lives in dualities the head functions like a prism if you pass a ray of light through the prism it divides it into seven colours that's how the rainbow is created 1/08/07

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the reverse of one colour

just pure white

but the prism dissects it, cuts it into seven parts the same is the way of the mind it cuts everything into love and hate misery and bliss, life and death, summer and winter and so on and so forth

but when you go beyond the mind...

and that's the place where silence is the moment you leave the mind behind those dualities start disappearing the rainbow becomes one colour just pure white

white is the colour of silence oneness is the nature of silence and once you have heard your own silence then there is no music compared to it no dance, no celebration

which can even come close to it everything seems to be just ordinary compared to the inner silence

and the man who attains to that silence becomes the beloved of the universe that is the meaning of supriya supriya means the beloved

the only proof for god or godliness to be more exact is the experience of silence a great philosopher, maulingaputta came to gautam the buddha

and he asked, can you prove that god exists?

buddha said, if you really want the proof are you ready to fulfil the conditions?

maulingaputta said

i am ready to fulfil any conditions but i want the proof

buddha said, then do one thing: for two years just sit silently by my side no question

no argumentation

just be silent

fall deeper and deeper into silence and when two years have passed i will enquire

two years passed and exactly the same day buddha asked maulingaputta do you need any proof now?

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and maulingaputta laughed, he said you have given the proof, i have experienced it silence is enough proof and there is no proof now i know why you have made this condition these two years of falling and falling into the abysmal silence

it is no more a philosophical question now it has become an existential experience my sannyasins have not to bother themselves with philosophical questions with theological arguments my approach is existential be still and know

because there is no other way to know one of the most significant things o be remembered is

never cultivate silence

anything cultivated is always false and we are trained to cultivate everything we are told to love

as if one can manage to love as if it is one's question of willing as if it is nothing but putting more effort into it as if it is a kind of doing we are told to be compassionate to be of service to others and all kinds of nonsense

and because from the very beginning we are told we start trying

the real never happens that way but we start creating the unreal one can pretend to be loving one can pretend to be compassionate and one can pretend so long that one can forget completely that is it is a pretension and that is the most degrading experience in human life

my approach is

never cultivate anything

otherwise you will be moving in the dimension of the false discover your spontaneity

1/08/07

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and in that very discovery you will discover many things which you were not even dreaming of because all that is really significant is part of your spontaneity the spontaneous person is loving not that he is trying to love; he is simply loving the spontaneous person is compassionate is kind, is just

these are not qualities that he has cultivated not qualities that he has cultivated not qualities that he has disciplined himself to they are just flowers of his spontaneity roses on the bush of spontaneity and the way to discover your spontaneous nature is silence

create a distance

between the noise of your head and your being move as far away from the head as possible the farther you are away from the head the better because from that extreme

you will not be able to hear the noise of the head slowly slowly it will fade away in the distance the moment it takes away into the far distance you have discovered something there is no interference

the mind is no more poking its nose in and suddenly you become aware of your own intrinsic nature and with that is the beginning of miracles but with me the immediate is the ultimate the immediate and the ultimate are not two different things with me the ultimate is not somewhere far away the ultimate is very close by in the very immediate it is present in the very immediate it is pulsating the immediate is the heartbeat of the ultimate so when i say that silence is the ultimate goal avoid misunderstanding me

i am saying

that silence is the immediate way of living live silently

1/08/07

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people are living with such a fuss with so much noise

unnecessary

but they have become accustomed to it addicted to it

unless they make much fuss and much noise they start feeling as if life is slipping out of their hands the more noise they make

the more they seem to be alive they are not alive

they are simply insane

because life happens only in deep silence but this whole earth is a big madhouse politicians are making so much noise; they live on it the more you kick the dust the more you create clouds around you the bigger you are

the more mischievous you are the more is the possibility that you will be remembered in history alexander, tamerlaine, genghis khan, nadir shah napoleon, adolf hitler, mussolini, stalin these are the people

who fill the whole history of humanity the buddhas are not even to be found in the footnotes

because they never made any noise they lived silently, lived joyously and died silently and died joyously but they are the real people the very salt of the earth remember: if one wants to b really alive and ecstatically alive

then silence is the way

the way and the goal both

the means and the end both the immediate and the ultimate both silence is not a word

it is an experience

it is not a doctrine, a dogma but a taste on the tongue

something to be eaten, to be drunk, to be digested something that becomes part of your blood, bones and very marrow 1/08/07

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but people go on living with words the word becomes more important to them than the experience

the word god seems to be more important than any experience of god the word love seems to be more important than any experience of love my sannyasins have to be very aware of it don't be trapped into words because millions are trapped in words always go beyond the word into the experience unless you reach the experience you have not lived your life the way it should be lived intensely, passionately, totally the worldly people

are the most impotent people in the world they know all big words and the whole jargon they are great bullshitters they can go on and on talking about things they have not experienced at all beware of that trap, that trap is everywhere there are christian traps, hindu traps mohammedan traps

traps are available in all sizes and shapes and unless one is very watchful one is going to be trapped somewhere but a simple awareness that the word is not the reality the word love is not love

the word god is not god

and the word fire is not fire only this much awareness is enough and then you will start searching for the experience and the experience is liberating the experience is enriching and silence is the greatest treasure if you experience...

it is the very kingdom of god the noisy mind is never in a state of balance it is always swaying like a pendulum from left to right, from right to left it is never in any state

it is always moving somewhere and there is one thing more to be remembered about the pendulum

when it is going to the far right it is gaining momentum to go to the left it is getting ready to go to the left 1/08/07

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it is packing its suitcases on the surface it looks going to the right deep down its whole psychology is going towards the opposite it is always in a contradiction mind is a contradiction, a continuous fight there is not even a single moment when the mind can be said to be in a state of balance

it is not possible for the mind because to be in balance

means not to be in the mind mind means imbalance if the pendulum stops in the middle then the clock stops immediately the clock can continue

only if the pendulum goes on moving silence is the stopping of the pendulum and the moment your mind stops suddenly there is great balance and that balance is the truth of life and to live life out of that balance is beauty, grace

it is easily possible, very easily possible but the saints have been telling the whole world that it is very difficult they have been deceiving you for the simple reason that if it is very simple

then their saintliness will not be of much value if it is available to all ordinary human beings then what is there special in being a saint?

so they try to brag about it they go on putting it higher and higher beyond your reach

somewhere there on the everest so that you cannot reach there so that they can claim only, we have reached the chosen few of god

in fact the whole existence is divine there is nobody who is chosen all are chosen or nobody is chosen and to attain to silence and equilibrium is a very simple and natural phenomenon very ordinary

it has to be brought to the notice 1/08/07

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of every human being

that for centuries you have been deceived and fooled

few egoists have been on a great ego trip holier-than-thou

the messengers of god, the prophets of god the incarnations of god, these are the people who have reduced humanity into utter slavery my effort here is to make you rejoice in your ordinariness

to make you rejoice the way you are i am not interested

in giving you any perfectionist goals my whole effort is to make you aware that whatsoever is needed is within your grasp that whatsoever is needed

in a certain way existence has already provided for you

you just have to look within, search within find out a little, explore a little

and you will find all that you had always wanted and you were feeling miserable because you were not getting it you were looking in wrong directions and you are being led by wrong people egoists have dominated the spiritual scene for so long

that it is time we should get rid of all kinds of egoists mahatmas, saints

and all kinds of those spiritual buffoons we should be finished with them and we should declare the ordinary human being as the ultimate peak of divine expression start

moment-to-moment

living silently

and as you get attuned with silence...

and it is as simple as learning to ride a bicycle as difficult and as simple when you try to ride on a bicycle for the first time it is really very difficult the very idea of sitting on two wheels makes one tremble inside

one knows that one is bound to fall but just a few efforts

maybe once or twice you will fall -- so what?

one can again ride on the bicycle 1/08/07

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there is no problem in it

once you have learned the knack surprised: it was so simple, it is just a knack those who know, know it is very simple those who don't know, they think it is very difficult and the difference can be bridged very easily just by a few efforts

sannyas means making a few efforts for something which is absolutely needed without which we are not truly living without which we are not joyous without which we are not really rich without which the whole opportunity is going down the drain

and just a few efforts

and i have been teaching so many people to ride the bicycle

yes, once in a while they fall but that fall is not bad; it teaches you the knack it is good, it is helpful

the only stupid people in the world are those who never try

who remain closed and afraid, shrunken and the greatest fear

that the so-called spiritual leaders of humanity have created is that of committing a mistake and anybody who wants to learn has to commit mistakes

so i tell my people

commit as many mistakes as you can commit new mistakes every day invent new ones, find out new ones don't repeat the old

and then learning begins

and there is no end to learning a child forever

and that is the true way of being a sage a child forever

The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #12

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Chapter title: None

12 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103125

ShortTitle: CLAPP12

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truth cannot be achieved by human efforts because all human efforts are bound to originate in the mind

and mind is the barrier

between truth and consciousness the mind has to be put aside that's what man is capable of doing not using the mind, putting the mind aside by-passing the mind, transcending the mind and the moment the mind is not functioning consciousness immediately becomes connected with the truth

the barrier is no more there hence the bridge happens

and that is the greatest blessing in existence when truth showers on you

only with the experience of truth life becomes meaningful, significant a celebration

a man without truth is a beggar a man without truth is not yet really alive he is simply living in a kind of dream he is not awakened

not awakened

to the tremendous beauty of existence to the immense ecstasy of life not aware of all the gifts that the whole has given to you the search for truth is really the search for meaning, the search for who am i?

and the single question, who am i? is enough if you can ask it with totality it will penetrate to the very core of the mystery of all that is the moment your question is answered 1/08/07

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not by somebody else, not by any scripture but by your own being

when it becomes your experience, existential then life is the life of a king then the whole kingdom of god is yours that simple word truth makes really a difference before it one is a beggar

after it one is the greatest king before it one is constantly asking for more after it there is only thankfulness, gratitude there is no god except the truth of existence god is not a person

but the experience of the ultimate meaning of life hence all worship is futile enquiry is valid, worship is futile my sannyasins have to be enquirers not worshippers

when you worship you worship an object and those objects are all man-made those temples, synagogues, churches are all man-made

you can worship philosophies, theologies they are also inventions of the human mind the enquirer has to travel a totally different path his journey is towards his innermost centre he turns within

because that is the only possible way to know what it is really that is hidden in the secretmost shrine of my being what is this consciousness? what is this awareness?

what is this love? where is the source of it all?

and the source is not without, the source is within hence those who go on looking on the outside will never find

turn in and the very moment of turning and you are entering

into a totally different dimension the dimension of godliness, of truth, of freedom of all that is valuable

truth is god

the word god can be dropped but the word truth cannot be dropped 1/08/07

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and truth is the search of all god is not the search of all almost half the humanity are no more believers soviet russia, china and other countries have dropped the very idea of god and the people who are believers are only so-called believers they don't believe either, they are pretenders but nobody can drop the search for truth it is intrinsic in our very being truth comes almost like a spring into the interior world of your being suddenly thousands of flowers start blooming the whole climate changes

it becomes colourful, fragrant, birds start singing for the first time

you see yourself totally transform~d no more a dead weight

no more just dragging your life somehow for the first time dance enters in for the first time you feel a tremendous rejoicing uncontainable, overwhelming, overflowing the search for truth is really the most basic and fundamental search of humanity because without it we are deserts only if truth happens to us the desert can become green only if truth happens to us we can know the inexhaustible treasures which are hidden within us and truth is not very difficult to find either the only question is a right approach if you think about truth

you have taken a wrong approach thinking is the wrong approach towards truth that is the way of philosophy meditation is the right approach and meditation is just the opposite of thinking meditation is anti-philosophy it simply means

dropping the whole structure of thinking dropping the whole process of thinking and just being silent, utterly silent alert but absolutely silent 1/08/07

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as if the whole world has stopped there is an ancient sufi story a crazy king became interested in the idea that if the whole world at a certain time starts shouting and screaming and doing primal it will be really a great experience the whole world, exactly at twelve o'clock in the middle of the day

for five minutes goes berserk and they put their whole energy into it and they cathart -- the whole earth and of course, he was a great king and he had the power

everybody thought the whole idea was simply mad but they had to follow

a day was fixed, the whole world was informed at twelve o'clock on a certain monday for five minutes put your total energy into it don't withhold, let go

shout, scream, do jibberish whatsoever happens, allow it and of course those who will not do it will be sentenced to death the whole world awaited for the moment and really something miraculous happened exactly at twelve o'clock

the whole world fell into deep silence nobody had ever experienced such silence the reason was that everybody thought when the whole world will be shouting who will be able to find me?

and why should i miss the opportunity to listen to the whole world going crazy?

so i will just wait and enjoy the whole thing why should i participate?

if i participate i may not be able to enjoy it i may not be able to experience what is happening and this was the logic of everybody for five minutes

there was such a thick, dense silence that it is said, the crazy king became enlightened he was not waiting for it, it was such a shock but the shock stopped his mind the story does not say

what happened to many other people i think many others

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must have become enlightened too because with such silence

one starts experiencing the truth but there is no need

for the whole world to become silent if only the world of your mind becomes silent that's enough

so any day, twelve o'clock, for five minutes just stop the world within and see what happens once you start having a few glimpses of silence truth starts penetrating

the deeper the silence

the deeper the thrust of the truth and when absolute silence happens absolute truth is yours

and that is the moment when the spring bursts forth truth brings many things in its wake it brings many gifts -- virtue is one of those gifts the truth of one's own being experienced changes your whole life pattern absolutely, irrevocably

for example, if you were jealous before you cannot be jealous afterwards if you were egoistic before you cannot be egoistic afterwards if you were dishonest

you cannot be dishonest afterwards if you were unkind

you cannot be unkind afterwards because the experience of truth is such that one cannot in any possible way go against it it is just like when there is light in the room you don't try to go through the wall you go through the door

yes, when there is darkness you grope and sometimes you try to get through the wall you stumble -- that is because there is darkness bring the light in and then there is no problem at all you know where the door is you don't even have to think about the door 1/08/07

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you simply know it, where it is and virtue is a door and sin is a wall but i don't say to my people to cultivate virtue and renounce sin that is not possible

that is saying to a man who lives in a dark cave to renounce stumbling and vow to god that you will always enter from the door that is asking too much

in darkness you have to be more lenient but bring the light in

and then there is no need to say anything so i don't give to you any discipline i only want one thing to happen to you that is the experience of your own being i call it the truth

become silent, know your own truth and that will be decisive, that will be liberating we are born with the kingdom of truth we bring from the beyond the whole kingdom but of course in a potential form, just as a seed hence it cannot be taken for granted one has to help the seed to fall in the soil one has to water

one has to do a thousand and one things so that the seed can relax, can dissolve and the hidden secret can become an actuality truth is our potential but it has to be made actual it is a possibility hence it is not beyond our grasp but one has to look for it a little bit dig for it a little bit -- it is always found whosoever has looked for it has found it without any exception

but that little effort is very essential looking for it

meditation is nothing but creating a right situation right perspective, a clarity of the eyes so that you can look within yourself where the seed is hidden

silence gives you the opportunity to become unoccupied with the world and the moment

you are no more occupied with the world your whole attention starts moving inwards 1/08/07

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your whole awareness

starts converging towards your centre and it is at that centre

that the ultimate truth is experienced the ultimate music is heard the ultimate ecstasy is felt man can either be rich in possessions he can conquer the whole world he can accumulate all the wealth of the world but that is not really going to change his inner poverty -- on the contrary he will feel himself poorer than before in contrast to all that he has accumulated he will be able to see that deep inside the wound is still there, far more clear i am not against the things of the world i am not against the riches of the world but one thing has to be remembered that there are greater riches than that and a greater kingdom

is waiting inside you to be conquered so don't waste all your energy in the outside world save the major portion of your energy and life for inner enquiry

then you become a king of religion what jesus calls the kingdom of god and it is everybody's birthright we just have to claim it

truth is not a philosophical concept it is the experience of your eternal life it is the experience of the consciousness you are built of

and that consciousness is not confined between birth and death

it was there before birth

and it will be there after death thousands of births and deaths have happened on the way

but your pilgrimage continues the pilgrimage is endless, beginningless the moment one experiences one's deathlessness then only one knows what life is because life basically is deathlessness once death

is found to be irrelevant to your inner being then there is no fear, no anxiety 1/08/07

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and that absence of fear and anxiety creates the opportunity for bliss to descend in you the fearful person cannot be blissful the fear is such a disturbance and anxiety creates so much stress and tension that it is impossible for bliss to enter in you bliss can enter only

when your inner being is absolutely empty of fear and anxiety, tension and stress and as far as i have observed working with thousands of people these are the barriers

and they are all related to death basically all fear is fear of death directly, indirectly, but if you go on searching you will find it is always death that is creating fear, anxiety, stress, tension to know one's being as eternal is to know the truth and that very truth becomes a blessing then life is lived on a totally different plane with more playfulness, with more sense of humor then life becomes simply a relaxed phenomenon utterly relaxed

just as flowers are relaxed and the birds are relaxed

and the rivers are relaxed and the mountains are relaxed man can have far more and far deeper relaxation than anybody else in the whole of existence because man certainly is

the pinnacle of consciousness it is sad to look at humanity they could have been the most blessed beings but they seem to be the most miserable truth is the experience

of a meditative consciousness one cannot think about it

one cannot argue about it

one cannot be scientific about it one can only be meditative about it and meditation means a simple thing a state of no-mind, a state of utter silence the Sound

of one hand

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Clapping

so silent, so absolutely silent that there is no duality left, all is one all has become one, the dual has come together the day and night are together life and death are together love and hate are together that communion of the opposites that meeting of the polarities that mingling and merging of all contradictions the moment all contradictions are complementaries you have come home

that is the state of meditation and in that state

all that is our deepest longing of the heart is fulfilled -- so totally fulfilled that not even a trace of desire remains in one the old religions say become desireless then you can attain to god now that is absurd to say to people become desireless, then you can attain to god so apparently stupid, ridiculous because the people who want to attain to god are desirous people -- it is a desire to attain to god in fact the greatest desire and the condition is

be desireless so that you can attain to god now one who is desireless

why he should be interested in god at all?

i am not

even if god knocks on my door i am not going to see him

and jesus says knock and the doors shall be opened i cannot say even that to god knock and i shall open my doors why should i knock, open my doors it is none of your business to knock on my doors i don't knock on your doors you don't knock on my doors -- it is an agreement the man who is really desireless why should he bother about god?

and if he is desiring god then how can he fulfil the basic condition of being desireless?

so i don't say that

1/08/07

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my approach is diametrically opposite i say be meditative, enjoy being silent rejoice in being silent and in that very silence bliss will happen, truth will happen freedom will happen

and once bliss, truth and freedom and love have happened

there will be nothing left to desire meditation brings naturally the state of desirelessness

The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #13

Chapter title: None

13 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103135

ShortTitle: CLAPP13

Audio:

No

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love and life are synonymous in language they may have different meanings but in existence

they are precisely the same phenomenon no difference, no gap exists between the two the really alive person is pure love and if love is missing then life is nothing but a vegetation one can go on vegetating

without love life has not happened at all one was born, one existed, one died but life never happened

life happens only the moment love starts flowing and the greater the love, the deeper life becomes a sannyasin has to remember 1/08/07

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not to put any limitations on his love love should not become object-focussed the moment you become object-focussed you are getting trapped

for example, if you love one person that means that the remaining whole existence has been rejected

you have excluded it out of your love affair your love has become very narrow and a narrow love becomes an imprisonment love should never become like a tunnel it should remain open from all sides one should love as many people as many aspects of life

as many dimensions as possible one should go on exploring when love excludes nothing then it reaches to its ultimate peak that is the moment when one experiences life that is the moment when life becomes not just an ordinary existence it takes a new flavour, it becomes godliness love is not a duty

the moment you make a duty out of it you have destroyed it

if there is a should in it, it is a corpse you can carry it, you can decorate it but there is no heartbeat in it and that's how humanity has been conditioned for thousands of years

love has been killed in such a subtle way not directly but very indirectly and the methodology used to kill, to murder love is make love a duty

love your mother, it is your duty love your father, it is your duty love your wife, it is your duty love your children, it is your duty even love your neighbours, it is your duty love your enemies

love is a spontaneous flowering of being it cannot be reduced to a commandment one cannot be ordered to love because then whatsoever you do is only pretension then you are going through empty gestures remember it -- that i don't teach you any duty at all duty is a four-letter-dirty-word 1/08/07

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love for no reason at all

love for the sheer joy of loving love because only by loving will you be able to know what it is all about this whole existence this life this miraculous universe that surrounds you love is the bridge between you and the whole hence it has to be just a song of the heart just as in the morning the sun is rising and birds start singing, for no reason at all the sheer joy of the sun rising the night is finished

the sheer joy of seeing the sky again and the vastness and the freedom of it the sheer joy of seeing flowers again opening up and all the colours and all the fragrance and the bird cannot contain himself he starts overflowing, he starts singing that song is exactly what happens when you drop the idea of duty responsibility, virtue, morality and you start enjoying whatsoever is available in that very enjoyment something is triggered in you the heart starts dancing, singing and those moments of heartfelt joy are the real moments, the only real moments and once you have tasted them there is no need to have any other kind of moments then twenty-four hours a day the song can continue underneath, just below your consciousness it can become a constant presence deep inside your being

to me

when love becomes your constant innermost core god has happened

that's the only way god happens there is no other way

love has a way of its own

it becomes victorious but in a very strange way without conquering, without fighting in fact without even desiring to be victorious victory comes as a gift

as a reward from the beyond love is ready to be defeated love enjoys to be defeated love is ready to surrender 1/08/07

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love is never willing to fight but this is one of the miracles of life that love surrenders but in that very surrender becomes victorious

without any desire, without any motive victory comes on its own accord the people who try to be victorious are never victorious

they can force others into submission, into slavery but they cannot win their hearts -- that's impossible the body can be made a slave it can be chained, imprisoned, killed, destroyed but you cannot imprison the heart and the heart is the real core of the person love without any effort to conquer reaches to the very core of the person it is the only victory there is all alexander the greats are failures utter failures

only lovers have known the taste of victory and it depends on us

if we want to remain beggars go on struggling, fighting if one wants to be the emperor then surrender to existence, relax with existence be in a state of loving let-go and suddenly all is yours, the whole kingdom of god is yours love can reach to its ultimate peak only when it becomes friendliness these are the three possibilities for love one is lust -- that is biological nothing wrong about it

but it is the lowest form of energy all the animals have it

nothing special about it if man has it lust joins humanity with the animal kingdom it is a reproductive force it is nature's way to continue the species to remain confined to lust is to miss the real point

one should go a little higher, then there is love love is not biological, it is psychological 1/08/07

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it is a higher dimension

it is not reproductive, it is creative the moment two persons are in deep love all their creativity explodes they may start things they had never done before they may start painting, they may start music they may start dancing

things they had never dreamt of suddenly start arising in their being love brings a new climate

and new flowers start growing but very few people attain to love ninety-nine point nine per cent of people remain confined to the animal world, lust love is freedom from being an animal it is the birth of the human being there is still a higher peak than love because love although it is far more beautiful than lust tremendously pregnant with creativity has still some hangover of lust remaining with it it has come out of lust

something of lust follows it like a shadow it becomes a shadow but it is there and it goes on affecting

that's why love is possessive, jealous, envious these are ugly traits, they are hangovers of the past they destroy the beauty of love and as love starts settling these things start raising their heads so love is beautiful only when the honeymoon is on and it is not long; it comes and goes so quickly that when it goes then only you know it was there and then there is something which is not love the shadow starts possessing you one can rise a little more when love becomes just friendliness i am not even calling it friendship because that may give you the idea of relationship i call it friendliness

when love becomes just a friendliness no possessiveness, no jealousy no desire to dominate

when love starts giving freedom to the other total freedom, unconditional freedom then it becomes friendliness and that is the highest

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human consciousness can reach very few people have known friendliness their names can be counted on the fingers it is a sad thing that such a vast humanity goes on missing their own intrinsic potential my sannyasins have to transform lust into love, love into friendliness

the moment you have reached to the state of friendliness you have arrived home

seriousness is like a desert the desert has to be transformed into a garden you need a green revolution love can do that miracle

only love can do that miracle love is the only beautiful experience which is non-serious -- it is playful hence all the religions have been denying love for the simple reason that with love cannot be serious and seriousness has become the very characteristic of the saint he has to be without juice just like a dehydrated fruit the more dehydrated, the more he looks like a saint whenever you want to see a saint you can just see a dehydrated prune and that will give you the idea of all the saints of all the religions all the juice has gone out love is juice

we in the east have defined god as god has been defined nowhere else i have never come across a better definition and i don think there exists any the upanishads say raso vai saha -- god is juice this ii a very strange definition sometimes i wonder

i may have written that upanishad maybe in a past life

otherwise who would do it?

i cannot find anybody else doing it love is non-serious, it is alive, it is playful love makes life fun, a celebration and my whole effort here is to create 1/08/07

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for the first time in the whole history of humanity a new kind of religious person for whom laughter

is far more valuable than prayer tor whom playfulness

is far more spiritual than seriousness who should be closer to a poet than to a philosopher

closer to music than to mathematics closer to sensitivity rather than being dull closed, walled from all sides, afraid of life escapist, renouncing life -- no that is not going to be my sannyasins' way instead of renouncing life my sannyasins have to rejoice in life and the way to rejoice is to love so drop all your seriousness and it is only a question of seeing that seriousness is a barrier it makes you closed and hard it does not allow you to be vulnerable and receptive and one has to be so vulnerable so available to existence

that the wind, the rain, the sun they can all reach to your very heart love makes one utterly contented because love is always an experience in the present you don't love tomorrow

love has nothing to do with yesterdays and tomorrows

love knows only one time: now and only one place: here

that's why mind feels it very difficult to be in love

because mind is always concerned with the future or with the past those are the two constant references for the mind it moves between past and future it is a constant shuttling between past and future it never stops in the middle and love is exactly in the middle love is without any nostalgia for the past and without any desire in the future hence the contentment

these are the two discontents people live in either they think of the past all those trains that they have missed now nothing can be done about it 1/08/07

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it is simply utter stupidity now there is no point in just going on reading the timetable of the trains about the trains that you have missed in the past it cannot be changed, you cannot undo it but mind is stupid, mind as such is stupid i have never seen an intelligent mind the heart is intelligent

and mind is always mediocre or one starts planning for the future and life is passing by every moment hence mind has a condemnation for love it thinks it is something crazy all the languages of the world have this expression falling in love strange -- why do all the languages call it falling in love -- why not rising in love?

it is mind's condemnation, mind is saying you have fallen, you have gone cuckoo you have lost your sanity

it is a way of condemning

mind lives in discontentment and condemns love which is absolute contentment mind always asks for more

that's how it creates discontentment love is always thankful

for whatsoever is happening love always feels that

i am getting more than i am worthy of that i am getting from existence things which i don't deserve at all i have not earned them, they are coming as gifts the moment you start seeing all the gifts that existence goes on showering on you how can one remain discontented?

and out of a contented heart thankfulness arises that thankfulness is the very core of religion of real religion

not of christianity, hinduism, mohammedanism but of religiousness as such if one can feel grateful to existence then there is no need to believe in any theology, any doctrine, any dogma 1/08/07

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that thankfulness is enough deep in the himalayas, from virgin peaks where snow has never melted, the ganges starts the point where ganges starts is called gangotri it is a very small place

just a small face of a cow somebody has sculpted a rock into the face of a cow and from that face of the cow the great river ganges starts it starts as a small stream and then goes on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger finally it becomes the very ocean itself that's also the way of love it starts in a very small way but one should not stop there one should go on flowing, moving love should never become static it should remain dynamic

the moment it becomes static it starts stinking the moment it becomes static it loses the freshness of a river, the aliveness of a river it becomes just a muddy pool people call it marriage

it was just a muddy pool and such a small pool and they go on round and round chasing each other and creating more mud

and throwing mud at each other love should be a river, always moving from the known into the unknown and from the unknown towards the unknowable the beginning has to be small but the end has to be the infinite, the oceanic if one can remain aware of it then love is all that there is to spirituality except love, whatsoever goes on in the name of spirituality is all bullshit esoteric bullshit, occult bullshit remember it -- because it is very easy to fall into that bullshit it has great attraction

it has great systems of thought and strange ideas and all inventions of crafty people 1/08/07

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life is very simple -- so is love and if you can remember these three l's like three r's: life, love, light nothing else is needed to be remembered live totally, live lovingly and live not in a state of unconsciousness live consciously -- that is living with light just these three words are enough and one need not bother about anything else knowledge is of the mind, wisdom is of the heart the way of knowledge is logic the way of wisdom is love

initiation into sannyas simply means getting out of your logical structure of the mind and entering your own ignored world of love the schools, colleges, universities they exist precisely for one purpose that is to force every child towards the logical structure they force every child to ignore the love energy and once you get imprisoned in the logical structure of the mind you become almost like a machine, a biocomputer and that's what the society needs the church needs, the state needs: biocomputers they don't need human beings they are afraid of real, authentic individuals because those individuals will be rebellious they cannot be manipulated, dominated they cannot be enslaved

our whole so-called civilisation eastern, western -- both -- are just strategies of destroying freedom, destroying the individual destroying his love and forcing him to be just an efficient machine because doctors are needed, professors are needed mechanics are needed scientists are needed the society has no use for the lover the state does not need any lover the church has no utility for love and up to now we have lived in a very utilitarian way

and love is non-purposive, non-utilitarian but it is love that brings insight into the mystery of life

it is not a commodity

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it cannot be part of the marketplace but without it you can never be ecstatic without it you can never be in tune with existence it is fundamentally the need of the individual not of the collective, the mob, the crowd, the society so a shift is needed, one has to change the gears from the head to the heart and the moment your energy starts moving into the heart

you will have such an experience of freedom such a tremendous experience of expansiveness that you will not be able to believe that this was possible to me it looks impossible

when it happens for the first time, unbelievable because we have been told by these fools for centuries

that it happens only to a christ because he is the only begotten son of god not to everybody

or it happens to gautam the buddha because he is a reincarnation of god not to everybody else

this is absolutely wrong

it is everybody's birthright it can happen to everybody just a simple shift, a change of the gestalt from the head to the heart, from logic to love and you become entitled

to all the miracles of existence love can either be very noisy as ordinarily it is

or it can be utterly silent when love is noisy it creates more anxiety more anguish than you had ever suffered before one woman was saying to her lover now that we are going to be married you should be happy -- i will be there always to share all your suffering, problems, anxiety but the man said i don't have any problems, anxieties, and suffering the woman said i am not talking about now i am talking about after marriage the bachelors think the married people 1/08/07

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are living a really happy life if somebody thinks that married people are living a happy life that simply shows that he is a bachelor, nothing else it is really a mystery why people get married and there are a few people who even get married twice that is a bigger mistake

that is impossible to conceive once one can understand, but twice if one is a little intelligent he will not commit the mistake even once this is happening because love the ordinary love -- is more like a fever it is more like an infection, a contagious disease in fact, vd, to be exact

unless love becomes meditative it remains a disease only meditation takes the fever out of it and makes it a cool phenomenon not cold but cool

ordinarily it is hot, a very hot affair but anything that is very hot is bound to become cold sooner or later even with central heating it is going to become cold that's the nature of things but there is a point between hot and cold exactly in the middle

which is the point of coolness meditation creates that coolness and when meditation

has created a coolness inside you and love starts coming through that coolness it has a totally different flavour a different perfume, a different quality it is very liberating

but silence should be the source of love not the noisy mind but a silent centre of your being love should come from the innermost shrine cool, silent, meditative, aware, alert, watchful then love can give you

the most beautiful experiences of life it can give you the master key that opens all the locks of all the mysteries of existence but silence is a must

without silence love simply drives people insane and silence is very easy

love is a togetherness

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silence simply means

entering into your aloneness before you enter into somebody's being into somebody's life

you have to be acquainted with your own aloneness you have to be rooted in your aloneness you have to know exactly what your aloneness is only then can love blossom out of it it is just like friedrich nietzsche says if a tree wants to rise upwards to touch the stars in the sky then its roots have to go downwards to the very rock-bottom of existence unless the roots go deeper the tree cannot go higher

the tree and the roots have to balance each other in the same proportion they have to grow one in depth, one in height love is like a tree trying to reach to the stars the longing for the stars

and meditation is growing roots inwards deeper, to the very rock-bottom of your being when the roots reach to your ultimate silence the space where one hears

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

then your tree can blossom into the sky can have a dialogue with the stars love has failed in the world because meditation was not the source of it love can succeed and love has to succeed otherwise humanity is doomed only with a meditative background so my whole teaching here is to do two things one, to help you to become meditative to reach your absolute intimate and private being and the second part is, to grow into love when meditation blossoms into love a man is no more a man

he has transcended humanity 1/08/07

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you can only call him a god a buddha, a jesus, a krishna The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #14

Chapter title: None

14 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103145

ShortTitle: CLAPP14

Audio:

No

Video:

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mind is a coward, mind is basically fear-oriented it is always suspicious

always doubting, always on guard mind creates a situation in which you feel a stranger to existence

because of all those suspicions that mistrust disconnects one from all that is and then there arises a vicious circle the more you feel lonely, an outsider the more afraid you become because the vast universe seems to be inimical this is mind's projection

and if the whole existence is inimical to you naturally, you become more afraid the more afraid you become the more the universe seems to be inimical that's how mind goes on shrinking into itself closing its doors, windows. out of fear it becomes a windowless, encapsulated existence and out of that arises all suffering misery, greed, anger

mind is the creator of the hell around the heart is always brave

because the heart cannot doubt just as the mind cannot trust the heart simply trusts -- it is its nature 1/08/07

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but the religions have been creating a very difficult situation for man they tell to you believe

but that belief is going to be of the mind and any belief of the mind is carrying within it all its doubts because that is not the nature of the mind the christian, the hindu, the mohammedan they are all believers

but belief is part of the mind hence it can never be true it is always superficial, not even skin-deep scratch it a little bit

and you will find all the doubts hiding behind it i don't say to my sannyasins believe that's what has been driving the whole of humanity crazy i say to my sannyasins

move your energy from the mind to the heart and then there is trust -- it is not belief belief is a suppression of doubt and trust is absence of doubt that is a totally different phenomenon of tremendous beauty and of immense innocence and the way to move from the mind to the heart is becoming silent, more and more silent mind is noisy, heart is silent so one has to renounce the noise and slowly slowly, imbibe the spirit of silence a moment comes when you can hear the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

and that is the moment of ultimate transformation then you are really born for the first time then one is not a christian or a hindu or a mohammedan or a jew

one is simply religious

because of that trust, that silence 1/08/07

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a quality, a totally new quality arises in your being that quality i call religiousness aloneness and silence

are two aspects of one experience two sides of the same coin if one wants to experience silence one has to go into one's total aloneness it is there

we are born alone, we die alone between these two realities we create a thousand and one illusions of being together all kinds of relationships friends and enemies, loves and hates nations, races, religions

we create all kinds of hallucinations just to avoid one fact

that we are alone

but whatsoever we do, the truth cannot be changed it is so, and rather than trying to escape from it the best way is to rejoice in it rejoicing in your own aloneness is what meditation is all about the meditator is one who dives deep into one's aloneness

knowing that we are born alone we will be dying alone

and deep down we are living alone so why not experience what this aloneness is it is our very nature, our very being because of this aloneness

two possibilities open up

one, to escape from it

then whatsoever you do in the name of love is false because you don't love the person you are simply trying to find an excuse in the other person to escape from yourself and the other is also doing the same it is a very negative kind of love the other is trying to escape from his or her aloneness

and you are just an excuse the person who chooses the first alternative of escaping from one's reality becomes pseudo 1/08/07

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in all his love, in all his relationships the second alternative is to experience your aloneness, your silence that absolutely virgin spot inside your being where nobody can enter, nobody can trespass that is your true world

knowing it, experiencing it, one is surprised that there was no need to escape from it it is one of the most ecstatic experiences even love is secondary

the person who has known his aloneness also loves but his love has a tremendous beauty t is positive: he is not escaping from himself he is rooted in himself, centred in himself and because of that rootedness and centering he is so full of joy that he wants to share it his love is a sharing, it is not an escape his love is a gift

the other is not being used as a means the other is dignified by his love ordinarily love reduces people into slaves into bondage, into possessiveness, into jealousy into all kinds of ugly things real love is a by-product of the experience of silence and aloneness

i teach meditation

and i teach love through meditation when love is grounded in meditation then it is alive

then it is exactly synonymous with god then it brings freedom

and it brings great blessings and benedictions very few people have known really what love is because very few people have entered into their own innermost, silent, alone space a sannyasin has to do only one thing he has to rejoice in his aloneness then love comes just like a shadow of its own accord

one can cultivate a certain kind of silence by chanting mantra

by other auto-hypnotic methods by focussing on something constantly one can create a kind of silence 1/08/07

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but that is pseudo

it is really a state of dullness, not silence it is a state closer to sleep not closer to awakening

methods like transcendental meditation are nothing but non-medicinal tranquillisers if you repeat a certain mantra continuously the very repetition is so boring that the mind becomes tired, exhausted in that tiredness and exhaustion certainly it stops but that is not true silence, it is very cheap it is only a trick and anybody can manage it in the name of religion, spirituality it is selling simple auto-hypnosis i am not in favour of such a silence the real silence happens

when you start watching the noise of your mind there is a constant traffic in the mind thoughts, memories, imagination thousands of desires

it is always a crowd moving in all directions if you can stand by the side of the road and just watch, without any evaluation, judgment without condemning something or appreciating something

just sitting on the bank of the river watching the flow of the river unconcerned, detached, just being a pure witness then the miracle happens

as your witnessing deepens the traffic on the road of the mind starts dispersing, in the same proportion when the witness is zero per cent the traffic is one hundred per cent -- it is rush hour when the witness is fifty per cent the traffic is fifty per cent when the witness is ninety-nine per cent the traffic is only one per cent and when the witness is one hundred per cent totally there, with absolute awareness the traffic disappears

and to see the empty mind is true silence then silence explodes

from the innermost core of your being then it is like a lotus flower opening its petals 1/08/07

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that silence is liberating i teach only that kind of silence silence is not a dead thing the so-called religious people the saints and the spiritual leaders of mankind if you look at them you will get the idea that silence seems to be something dead because they are not really silent they are boiling within, they have repressed their thoughts, desires, everything they are sitting on top of a volcano when your mind is just repressed you get something dead

then it is a silence of a graveyard but that is not worth achieving in fact the noise of the mind is far better at least it is alive

compared to a dead silence the noise of the mind is far more valuable, because it is alive i am always in favour of life for example, i would like an alive insane man more than a dead corpse

it may be the corpse of a saint but the insane man is at least alive and life has possibilities the insane can become sane but that corpse of the saint cannot come back to life silence has to be alive, vibrating pulsating, dancing, singing it has to be the experience of inner music then one has to move in a totally different way repression is not the way to attain to true silence, alive silence a silence full of music and song and dance understanding is the way

never repress anger: understand it never repress greed: understand it repression should not be a word in the vocabulary of a sannyasin understanding should be substituted because through understanding one transcends the moment you have understood your anger 1/08/07

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you are no more angry

the energy of the anger is released from its old pattern through understanding and that same energy becomes compassion the moment you have understood the noise of the mind

the same energy becomes

the music of your inner being man has not to deny anything in him because all that is there is immensely pregnant we have to find out -- with love, with insight what is hidden there

then even things like jealousy, the ego possessiveness, the desire to dominate, ambition all are transformed

you need not cut anything from your life we have to absorb all the energies then only can one have the inner orchestra because these are the people greed, anger, ego

which will play on different instruments of your being

these are the musicians -- if you start killing them distorting them, throwing them out you will be left only with instruments and no musicians

that's what happens to your so-called saints they are sitting there

with all kinds of instruments, surrounded but there is nobody to play all the energy has oozed out of them they themselves have thrown it out it is sheer foolishness

energy is neither bad nor good it all depends on how you use it so let understanding be the only law the only discipline

and one can come to a very alive silence a silence which is also a celebration it is our noise that is keeping us asleep the noise of the head functions like a lullaby and it keeps you asleep

even while you think you are awake you are not truly awake because just below the thin layer of your so-called wakeful state there is a deep layer of constant noise that goes on 1/08/07

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day in, day out -- it is a constant lullaby it allows you only a little bit of awareness just a little bit that is necessary for day-to-day work going to the once, coming back to the home eating your food, going to your bed just a very small quantity of awareness is needed for all these things in fact people go on doing all these things almost mechanically

if you eat your food every day at twelve o'clock and somebody has played a trick on you it is not twelve o'clock, it is only ten and somebody has fixed your clock on twelve looking at the clock you will suddenly feel hunger which is absolutely false, mechanical it is not there, it is your imagination it is just a projection, just an idea, a dream and while you are eating

you simply go on stuffing yourself not knowing what you are doing the mind may be somewhere else -- in timbuctoo in constantinople, in istanbul -- anywhere any stupid place but not on the dining table where you are sitting

the mind is a great tourist it is always somewhere else and you are doing, eating or taking a bath just like a machine, just like a robot it has become a habit, so slowly slowly even a little bit of awareness is not there one simply goes on doing mechanical gestures when you say to somebody hi, how are you you don't mean anything

in fact you were not even thinking to say it when you say it you are surprised why are you saying it

it is just there like a gramophone record it works autonomously

the moment you see some face which seems to be familiar it looks as if you have seen him somewhere the gramophone record simply starts turning on this constant noise inside is the barrier to awakening 1/08/07

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silence does just the opposite it helps you to be awake

hence initiation into sannyas is really initiation into silence

sannyas is another name for silence become more and more silent allow more and more silent spaces to yourself and as you will become silent you will see a new kind of awakening happening to you a new awareness arising in you new insight into things, new understandings which will transform all your activities when a person attains to total silence he becomes a flame of awareness he becomes a buddha, the awakened one that's the ultimate goal

i don't believe in religions my emphasis is on religiousness religions are bound to divide humanity that's what they have done in the past the whole of humanity is divided into camps inimical to each other, and the things they have been fighting about with each other are so stupid and ridiculous one religion says there are seven heavens another says there are only three and that's enough for a crusade it has to be proved in a war who is right great theologians of the middle ages were engaged in a great debate that continued for centuries the debate was

how many angels can dance

the point of a needle

now these are the people who have been dominating humanity guiding humanity towards truth

these fools, utterly insane, are the leaders the great moral teachers

if you look into religious doctrines, dogmas 1/08/07

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you will be surprised -- the whole thing seems to be so pointless, utterly meaningless but so much energy has been wasted and the whole of humanity

has been turned into small fragments hence i am not interested in any dogma any creed, any doctrine, any theology i don't teach you principles i simply want you to imbibe the spirit of religiousness and that is possible only through silence not through argumentation

not by reading the scriptures not by cramming scriptures like parrots because that will only increase your inner noise it is already too much

silence can be attained only if we understand that language is needed for outside communication it is not needed for your inner exploration at all because there you are alone there is nobody to talk to language is a social phenomenon needed of course when you go to the marketplace and if you want to purchase bananas language is needed

if you just stand silently there they will think you are a banana in the marketplace, in the outside world when you are communicating with people about things, objects, it's perfectly adequate, valid but when you turn in

all use of language is finished there comes a full point

there is no need to carry the language in and with the language dropped the mind is dropped because mind is only the mechanism for language, for thoughts mind is basically an instrument for dialogue but when you are moving in there is no question of dialogue because there are not two

who are going to discuss, argue, communicate you are one

hence silence is the only way to discover oneself and the moment you have discovered yourself you will have a quality, a very subtle quality like a fragrance surrounding a rose that quality i call religiousness it is deep love for all

it is unconditional love for the whole existence 1/08/07

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silence has many aspects to it it is multi-dimensional

on the bush of silence

thousands of flowers blossom of different colours, of different fragrances and the brightest of them all is an inner glow, inner light the last words of buddha to his disciples were be a light unto yourself

he was dying so nobody could ask him how? how should one be a light unto oneself?

and it is not appropriate at all to ask him when he is leaving the world and he has given his last message it condenses his whole life's teachings but when he died great quarrel, argumentation discussion arose amongst the disciples what does he mean by be a light unto yourself and of course he was no more there immediately thirty-two sects arose thirty-two interpretations of this simple sentence be a light unto yourself

the only person who was not involved at all in this argumentation was manjushri one of his great disciples he was sitting under his tree many came and asked

manjushri, you are one of the oldest disciples what do you think about the last statement we are very much agitated -- what does it mean and it is really significant because it is his last statement it is his whole condensed philosophy of life manjushri did not say a single word again and again they asked and he remained silent finally he said you cannot understand because i am answering you -- this is the only way to be a light unto yourself if you become silent

and all these fools who are arguing they will argue for centuries they will never know the light that is within themselves

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be silent, be still -- and the light is there just because of the cloud of your noise you cannot see it

as the dust cloud settles

suddenly the flame is seen and to see one's own inner light is to see the eternal, the ultimate, the deathless The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #15

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15 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103155

ShortTitle: CLAPP15

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man lives in a state of turmoil for the simple reason

that he is divided into many fragments and all those fragments are fighting to dominate man has not got one self, he has got many selves the idea of one mind is very false man is poly-psychic: he is many minds he is a crowd and of course the crowd cannot be peaceful there is continuous competition each fragment trying to come up on the top there is great politics in everybody's inner world unless this whole politics ceases there is no possibility of peace at the most people can manage just a facade of peace, just on the surface but deep down they are boiling deep down there is always war sometimes hot, sometimes cold, but no peace in fact the only way to be peaceful is to help all these fragments melt into oneness unless that integration happens one can befool others that one is living in peace 1/08/07

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but one cannot befool existence and one cannot befool oneself either one knows all the time

that one is sitting on a volcano which can erupt any moment one can go mad, one can murder one can commit suicide -- everything is possible and just a moment before the man was so sane so gentlemanly, so virtuous, so religious and within a moment he can start falling apart he was somehow holding himself together but there cannot be joy

in somehow holding oneself together joy comes only with a centering when all your parts melt, merge and become one that moment is the moment of divine peace it is possible through meditation because meditation takes you out of your fragments meditation is a simple process of watching all that goes on in your mind just keeping a little distance, just being a witness and that witnessing brings the greatest miracle suddenly you start feeling yourself separate from all the fighting fragments and that is the beginning of integration you have found a centre which is not in conflict you have found a cool space, a spot within you which remains unaffected, detached once this cool spot is found all fighting starts disappearing it is as if the master has come and the servants immediately surrender or, think of a small children's class the teacher is not there and there is great noise and fighting is going on and children are throwing things at each other --

which is natural for children the moment the teacher enters suddenly a silence descends, a peace all fighting has disappeared the same happens when you have found a cool spot within you

i call my sannyasins swamis the word swami means the master swa means the centre of your being 1/08/07

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and swami means one who has found it finding one's centre

is the beginning of a divine dimension --

then all is peace, then flowers of peace go on blossoming; endlessly ordinarily man is almost asleep only a very small thin layer of consciousness is there, otherwise his whole being is in darkness and unconsciousness this depth of unconsciousness and unawareness has to be transformed

unless your whole being becomes conscious you cannot experience the meaning of life and without experiencing the meaning of your life you will not know whether god exists or not god is nothing but the experience of meaning in existence

god is not a person but an existential experience that life is significant, that it is not accidental that there is a hidden, deep meaning in it but the only way to find it is to dive within your own being the vigilant spirit has to be grown supported, nourished

a sannyasin has to become a gardener because ordinarily

one need not have much awareness this small awareness that is naturally given to us is enough for the day-to-day life earning your livelihood, managing your family etcetera -- it is enough for that but life is a vast phenomenon it is not just earning your livelihood you can manage a good standard of living but the standard of living is not going to help you to live truly, authentically the standard of living is not really the measurement of how alive you are

one becomes alive only as one becomes aware but we have enough awareness it is just like a seed -- all that is needed is a little gardening, a little effort so the seed can dissolve into the soil and can start growing into a tree 1/08/07

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we have the seed -- initiation into sannyas means a commitment, a decision that i am going to transform this seed, this potential into a realisation

once this decision settles and sinks in your being it is not difficult to grow into awareness one has to work in three dimensions the first dimension is the body: one has to be more alert of what one is doing with the body --

walking, eating, lying down on the bed, relaxing all the actions of the body have to be watched they should not be done robotlike, mechanically the second dimension is the mind: one has to watch thoughts, desires, memories just watching what is going on inside what moves in the mind

and the third dimension is the heart the emotions, the moods, the feelings --

one has to watch them

if one continues watching these three dimensions...

this is the true trinity of life not god the father and christ the son and the holy ghost -- this is the true trinity the physiological, the psychological and the emotional

if we can be aware of these three then exactly at the centre of these three dimensions the fourth happens

in the east we have simply called it the fourth turiya

we have given it a number not a name the fourth is awareness

and it brings you to the door of the divine this is one of my emphases i want to emphasise

that there is no god as a person in existence the very idea of god as a person is a hangover from the past It IS me language of the child god the father -- it shows more about the people who were thinking of god as father than about the existence of god himself those were the childhood days of humanity and of course a child cannot think of more 1/08/07

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than a big father who is protecting who will always be there to look after us we can pray to him, we can depend on him it shows the fear of the child the insecurity of the child the helplessness of the child it shows nothing about god but the very idea of god as a person has proved very dangerous

because it is very easy to argue against it it is easy to argue against it because the whole idea is false it can be destroyed through simple logic so the religious people are the cause of creating atheism in the world i don't think that atheism would ever have been possible if the idea of god as a person was not accepted the moment you drop the idea of god as a person then even friedrich nietzsche cannot say god is dead he can say god is dead

because the presupposition is there that god is a person to me god is a presence not a person it is an experience -- it is not something outside you you cannot pray to god, there is no one to pray to and it is time that man

should become a little more mature kneeling down, raising your hands and head towards the sky is simply silly in fact the best way to find godliness is close your eyes and look within not towards the sky

there are other people who are meant to do that the astronomers, the astrologers, the physicists let them look at the stars, that is their work the religious person s basic standpoint is that of turning in

looking at the sky is not going to help look within, search within the moment you come closer to your own centre of consciousness you will be surprised: a tremendous presence a presence of an eternal light a presence of eternal ecstasy to me that is godliness

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once you have discovered it in your own being you know that it is in every being --

not only human beings

but animals, birds, trees, mountains everything is full of godliness because in fact the whole existence is made of the stuff called godliness there is no matter and no consciousness it is all one energy

different concentrations of the same energy different manifestations of the same energy but first one has to find it within oneself then it is found everywhere and the moment you see that you are living in the ocean of godliness

you have come home

now there is nothing else to search for nothing else to ask for...

a tremendous contentment, an ultimate fulfilment the most divine experience in life is the experience of absolute silence as if the whole world has stopped --

and it can be experienced

we have a space within ourselves if we stand in that space

the whole world simply disappears and a profound silence surrounds you a virgin silence

in that silence only one hears the celestial music the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

in that silence only

life becomes a song, a celebration once experienced it is never lost and it is one of the most ridiculous things about human beings

that they are carrying it within themselves and are not aware of it at all the inexhaustible treasure is there just waiting for you

but we are keeping our back towards it we are running everywhere, in every direction 1/08/07

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we are trying to reach to the everest trying to reach to the moon, to mars just the whole stupidity of human mind it is ready to go anywhere except to one's own centre sannyas means getting out of this stupidity the first responsibility of any intelligent person is to know oneself

because by knowing it all is known by knowing it life is transformed from misery to bliss, from darkness to light from death into immortality love can exist in three dimensions it can be either animal or human or divine the animal love is part of our biology it is just sex

the human love has to be achieved it is not already there; it has to be created the biology is a given factor but the psychology is our creativity the ingredients are there

the canvas is there, the colour tubes are there the brush is there but the painting is not there and it will depend on you what kind of painting is going to happen

you can make a painting

which is nothing but a nightmare a picasso painting

or you can make something

which has tremendous beauty not like a nightmare but like a sweet dream the same colours, the same canvas, the same hands but one has to be more sensitive more aesthetically aware

to create something of real beauty so love depends on you

sex is independent of you

it is part of your biology, it is nature s way to reproduce itself -- it has nothing to do with you it is almost a mechanical phenomenon chemical, physiological, hormonal but it has nothing to do with your consciousness 1/08/07

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love is a creativity

and very few people create it they remain confined to the animal cage they are not even aware

that something higher is possible of course it is the same energy that is involved in sex which becomes love but you have to create the situation in which the energy can start moving into new directions

which are not provided by biology and beyond human love is divine love which is the ultimate in creation human love is far superior to animal love but something of the animal remains like a hangover

it has grown out of the biological but it carries something of the biology in it it is not absolutely free from sex sex is now secondary but it is there in divine love sex is totally transformed it evaporates, the animal evaporates not only the animal but the human also evaporates divine love is the sheer joy of sharing your being, your creativity, your song whatsoever you can share

and it is a sharing with the whole existence human love is person-to-person animal love is impersonal

psychologists and biologists feel that human love became possible because it is only human beings who make love facing each other because they face each other they look into each other's eyes and in those moments of love certain kind of relationship grows between persons

animals don't make love facing each other hence they don't know the other at all the other simply remains anonymous there is no relationship

that grows out of their love making animal love is impersonal, below the personal human love is personal, person-to-person 1/08/07

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divine love is again impersonal but beyond the personal, not below the personal it is the love of the person for the impersonal existence, for the whole the love of the wave for the ocean and of course, the bigger, the vaster your love is vaster ecstasies become possible through it animal love doesn't seem to be ecstatic if you have seen two animals making love you can watch it -- on their faces there is no ecstasy instead there is a kind of agony because they are being forced by some natural energy

of which they are just prisoners as if they have to do it

they go on their way

the moment they are finished you can watch their faces

there is no ecstasy, no gratitude, no thankfulness not even a smile

many human beings also do that that means they are still behaving like animals but human love has a certain joy in it a certain ecstasy in it

but only to a certain extent and because it is limited to a person sooner or later one gets bored sooner or later it becomes a duty to be fulfilled all joy disappears from it, it becomes routine divine love is for the whole and the whole is immense, infinite hence one is never bored

it has no boundaries

one is never tired

a man like buddha, jesus or zarathustra live twenty-four hours a day in an orgasmic state that orgasmic state is almost like breathing or the heartbeat

that's the ultimate goal of sannyas to be in love with the whole to me it is real prayer

and all that goes on in the name of prayer in the churches and the temples and mosques is just false, pseudo

1/08/07

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the only way to experience the truth of existence is to drop the ego

it is the ego that keeps us separate it is the ego that functions as a barrier, a wall the moment you drop the ego -- and we can drop it because it is not something that is part of our being it is something that we have accumulated around our being, it is our possession we can renounce it

it is not clinging to us, we are clinging to it any moment we stop clinging it falls the moment ego disappears

you become just a shadow of god then you are just a nobody then you are no more

a nothingness

and nothingness has tremendous purity the moment one is nobody

one has reached to the ultimate depth of being because that depth is anonymous it has no name, no form

there is no sense of i in it it is simply amness, pure existence then one functions as a shadow of god then one becomes just a hollow bamboo if god wants to sing a song the hollow bamboo functions as a flute if god does not want to sing a song the hollow bamboo rests in silence song or silence but it is of god and by god i mean the whole, the total, the cosmos a sannyasin has to learn only one thing how not to be, how to disappear as an ego and remember, it is not a loss it is the ultimate gain

by losing the ego you lose nothing and you gain all

life is full of miracles

every moment

on every step you encounter miracles but we are blind, we have lost the sense of wonder we have forgotten the art of feeling awe and that is the greatest religious quality the sense of feeling wonder 1/08/07

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there are people who will go on their whole life and will never look at the beautiful sky or at the trees or at a sunset these people are blind

there are people who will never listen to the sound of running water or the wind passing through the pines or just the wind

playing in the fall with dry leaves and the great music that it creates there are people who never look at the flowers never look at each other's eyes at each other's faces

there are people whose hands are dead they cannot feel when they touch a tree they cannot feel the juice that is running in it the life that is flowing through it these are the really crippled people, really blind, deaf they are somehow living at the minimum a sannyasin has to live at the maximum he has to live at one hundred degrees intensely, passionately

each moment involved -- so utterly that nothing is left behind as if this moment is going to be the last and who knows? -- it may be the last one day one moment is going to be the last live each moment as if this is the last moment put all at stake, risk all and you will be immensely surprised that life becomes a tremendous miracle everything starts vibrating with life everything becomes a message every flower becomes a bible or a koran or a gita and every star becomes a proof enough proof that life is not just material every experience of beauty proves that life is more than matter every time you say aha! you are saying a prayer my message is simple: live life as a miracle because it is a miracle

experience it as magical -- it is magical there cannot be a more beautiful life 1/08/07

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and a more beautiful existence religions in the past have taken life very seriously because of this attitude towards life they prevented millions of people from being religious

not only that -- they created a situation in which only the pathological, the ill, the sick will be attracted towards religion the intelligent, the healthy, the young those who are full of life will be repulsed by religion seriousness is a kind of disease playfulness should be the foundation of a true religion

so i teach be playful:

the more playful you are

the closer you are to existence the more serious you are

the more egoist you become and the more serious you are the more closed then you are not open to the wind to the sun, to the rain

you are not open to anything you are just closed within your so-called stupid theology, certain dogma, doctrine, certain cult you are no more vulnerable one has to be vulnerable

keep all the windows open

allow existence to penetrate you and don't take things seriously existence is not serious

otherwise there would not be flowers existence is not serious

otherwise there would not be the song of the birds existence is very very playful joyous youthful alive

and to be in tune with it you have to be the same so become a song, become a celebration don't miss any opportunity to celebrate in fact don't bother whether it is the right moment to celebrate or not because that is seriousness use it as celebration

don't wait till the right occasion comes then you will miss

use any occasion, any excuse is a good excuse 1/08/07

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if you are celebrating

when i was a child

my father made a beautiful house but he was a very simple man so the contractors --

and you know indian contractors they deceived him and he never even conceived that they can deceive; they were also his friends the house was ready

we were just going to move within eight days he had gone out for some business and the house collapsed

so i sent him a telegram

386 come back immediately, the house has collapsed but he didn't come, he didn't reply either he came when he was expected to come and the first thing he said to me was there was no need to waste money on the telegram the house had already collapsed you should have celebrated i said for what?

he said because if we had moved in and then the house had collapsed we all would have been killed this is enough excuse for celebration he gave a feast for the whole town nobody could believe, he is mad but i could see his point, he was right never miss an opportunity for celebrating for feasting, for singing, for dancing and then don't bother about religions you are religious

The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #16

Chapter title: None

16 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103165

ShortTitle: CLAPP16

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love needs great courage

for the simple reason that the basic requirement of love is to drop the ego

and man is very afraid of dropping the ego it seems almost like committing suicide it only seems so because we don't know anything other than the ego ego has become our only identity and to drop it certainly means you are dropping your individuality it is not true

in fact just the opposite is the truth unless you drop the ego

you cannot know your real individuality the ego is a pretender

something false, pseudo, invented the moment it is dropped

only then you can see the real otherwise the unreal hides the real the unreal hides the real like clouds hiding the sun love requires a dropping of the ego hence love can become the door to the divine you may start loving a person but you will end up loving the impersonal the person becomes just like a window open towards the infinite sky but one has to be absolutely clear that the ego will have to be sacrificed people hanker for love

but at the same time they cling to their ego hence love never becomes a reality they come and go without tasting the nectar of love and unless you experience love you have not experienced life at all you miss the point

love is sacred

in fact the only thing that can give you the feeling of the sacred is love love exists on the earth but is not part of the earth it is a ray from the beyond so those who can catch hold of the ray 1/08/07

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they can go on moving in the direction from which the ray is coming and ultimately can find the source of all love the religions have called that source god it is better to call it godliness so the idea of the person is dropped and only the idea of energy remains love is sacred, divine, godly and also, love is a noble giver one can give but if there is an expectation of something to gain out of it then it is not noble, then it is just pure business it has no nobility about it one can give with certain conditions then it loses all nobility love is a noble giver

because it gives for the sheer joy of giving there is no desire for any return --

not that rewards don't come they come -- they come thousandfold but that is another matter that is not your expectation you were not desiring it, you were not demanding it you had no idea of any return in fact the lover is surprised when the gifts come what he had given was nothing and what comes is almost infinite, immeasurable love is sacred, it is really sacred because it is the art of noble giving give for the sheer joy of giving share for sharing's sake, for no other reason and you will be rewarded immeasurably you will come to the inexhaustible source just by giving you will become every time more and more rich -- that's the economics of love a totally different economics just the opposite of the ordinary economics if you give you will become poor in the ordinary economical world if you go on giving soon you will be a beggar but in the inner world the laws are just the reverse give and you become richer the more you give, the more you have the less you give, the less you have if you don't give you are poor, you are a beggar one has to learn it but the only way to learn is to give and see what happens to share and see what happens 1/08/07

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there is no other way to learn except experiencing it life has only one centre which is eternal otherwise everything goes on moving and changing life is like a wheel

but the wheel moves on something unmoving that unmoving centre of the wheel is love everything changes

only love remains always the same love is the only phenomenon that remains unaffected by time that is beyond time

those who have known love

they have known that time is not all that there is something more than time the eternity

time moves from past to future present in fact does not exist in time ordinarily we think these are the three tenses of time past, present, future

but in fact time consists only of past and future you can never get hold of the present the moment you get hold of it it is already past or if you try to get hold of it before it becomes past

then it is in the future

you cannot get hold of it in the present and love is in the present, love is always now it abides here and now

it has no past, no future, no birth, no death it simply is, it is pure isness and the whole existence

is made of the stuff called love the deeper you go into it the more you are surprised that existence is not made of matter matter is only illusory

illusory in the sense that it appears there but if you go deeper into it it disappears physicists say it is energy, not matter that is their way of saying it but the mystics say it is love, not matter in fact both have come very close the physicists and the mystics because love is pure energy of course the mystics way of saying it is far better, far more poetic than the physicists' way of saying it 1/08/07

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energy is a non-poetic expression, neutral love is a poetic expression it brings the energy closer to you it becomes your very heart the moment you say it is love it becomes something of immense value to know the mystery of existence one has to know the mystery of love to know the ultimate, the eternal one has to dive deep into love my sannyasins are not in search of god or truth their whole search is to know love in its totality because knowing love in its totality is knowing all it is knowing truth, it is knowing god it is knowing freedom

it is knowing all that is worth knowing one has to surrender to love with totality not holding anything back

if you are holding something back you will not be able to experience love one has to be a gambler, not calculating but ready to risk all, on one stake everything that one has and in that very moment is the transformation

there is a a great misunderstanding it has existed in the whole past of humanity and because of that misunderstanding lovers have been quarrelling fighting with each other

they think they have to surrender to each other that is nonsense

they both have to surrender to love surrender has to be there, but it is not to each other that creates the conflict; then each tries the other should surrender to me and of course, the same is the desire of the other and then there is conflict, then there is quarrel now psychologists say lovers are intimate enemies and they are right -- it should not be so because enemies are after all enemies intimate or not intimate

in fact intimate enemies are more dangerous because they are so close

and if lovers are also intimate enemies then there are only two categories in the world the unintimate enemies

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and the intimate enemies

friendship disappears completely then there is no third category and the reason is a fallacy once it is understood that both have to surrender to love, not to each other things become very easy

then there is no question of possessing each other no question of domination

both are possessed by love love which is a totally different phenomenon from their egos, their personalities they melt into love not into each other of course indirectly they melt into each other also because they are melting into the same love but that is indirect, that happens automatically love is the first experience of melting, merging, of losing one's boundaries hence it is the first spiritual experience and one should not stop at that one should go on and on

finding more, deeper surrenders and one day one has to be ready to surrender all to the whole that is the ultimate goal of human consciousness the moment one surrenders oneself to the whole one becomes holy

to me there is no other kind of holiness that is the only possibility of becoming a seer, a sage, a saint all other saints are just hocus-pocus deep down in their minds there are motives, desires maybe of the other world, of heaven, of paradise of being with god and all that kind of nonsense the real seeker simply surrenders to the universe dissolves himself into the whole, disappears and in that very disappearance one finds the ultimate core of one's being the deathless, the immortal, the eternal let love be your meditation 1/08/07

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let love be your only law

i have only one commandment because to me the whole religiousness is contained in this single word love

all the bibles, all the gitas, all the korans if in any scripture there is something valuable then it is bound to be some aspect of love love has many aspects

it is a multi-dimensional phenomenon the way to find it is meditation meditation simply means becoming utterly silent so that your mind is no more an interference mind is full of desires, motives, goals, purposes and love cannot be found by the mind because love has no motive, no purpose love has nothing to achieve, nothing to gain it is not a means to some end it is an end unto itself

hence mind is incapable of even comprehending what love is

mind has to be put aside

that putting aside of the mind is what meditation is all about when the mind is put aside you are in a state of meditation no-mind is meditation

and in that state, love blossoms suddenly you explode into love your whole life becomes an overflowing love but without silence it is not possible one has to attain to such a deep silence that not even a slight tremor of the mind remains in it not even a small ripple of thought, desire motive, greed, anger, no past, no future when mind has completely ceased then one hears the music of silence the song of silence

the Sound

of one hand

Capping

and that is the moment when love explodes then your whole life becomes nothing but love 1/08/07

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only the loving heart knows what peace is the unloving heart knows only war sometimes hot, sometimes cold but it is war all the same the unloving heart means a heart full of hatred and people are living in that ugly space of course they find beautiful rationalisations for their head trip

in fact they even pretend to love just to hate for example they will love christianity just to hate islam

they will love islam just to hate hinduism they will love hinduism just to hate buddhism they will love buddhism just to hate communism and so on, so forth

if you look deep inside their being their love is nothing but an excuse to hate they will love their country to hate all other countries they will love their race, their colour to hate all other races and all other colours but their basic motive is hatred hence in the name of religion so much bloodshed has happened even christians who believe in jesus whose whole teaching is rooted in love they have killed thousands of people they have burned people alive in the name of jesus, in the name of love it is a very insane humanity we talk about love just to hide our hatred we smile just to hide our anger a sannyasin has to be absolutely clear about it one has to be absolutely naked before oneself no more rationalisation

because that is the only way to be finished with hatred if you can see it is hatred that very seeing is enough then you cannot live it, then you have to drop it but if you think it is love then on the package it is love wrapped in beautiful packets but inside it is nothing but hatred so you can go on carrying those packets thinking that it is love

a sannyasin has to expose himself totally before himself he has to be clear what exactly is in his heart 1/08/07

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the moment you see hatred

that is the death of hatred because nobody can allow it nobody is so stupid to allow it if one knows, if one knows exactly the ugliness of it and it is ugly, hence i say the very seeing of it becomes its dropping and the moment hatred is no more there love blossoms and with love comes peace peace with the whole existence, a deep harmony then there is no enemy

jesus says love thy enemies -- i don't agree because even to think of them as enemies is not right

once you think of them as enemies and then you try to love them you are getting into a contradiction you can at the most pretend because deep down you know they are enemies and through your pretension that you are loving your enemies you can get into an ego trip that you are a holy person, holier-than-thou look, i love even my enemies not only that, even my neighbours i love my neighbours

to me the man of love knows no enemy hence he loves all

not that he loves his enemies he simply cannot see

that there is anybody who is his enemy jesus on the cross says

father, forgive these people because they know not what they are doing it looks like a good gesture but in fact he is condemning them, he is saying they are fools, they don't know what they are doing they are doing wrong -- that much is certain otherwise why forgive them?

the very idea forgive them shows that jesus knows they are doing wrong but according to his whole teaching love thy enemies as thyself he is acting his whole philosophy at the last moment also he says forgive i will not agree to it

1/08/07

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because you have already condemned them they are doing their thing and you are doing your thing what is there to be forgiven?

neither they need to be forgiven nor you need to be forgiven you enjoyed doing your thing they are enjoying doing their thing if i am crucified i will know that this is what i have been doing i was driving those people to crucify me so what is there to ask god to forgive them for?

why this holier-than-thou attitude?

this is a great insult to the people i will simply thank them

you have done the thing

that i was hoping you would do so goodbye, see you again

and again i will do the same and i hope that you will also do the same what else is there to say?

love cannot even utter these words, forgive them love simply loves and knows peace peace with the whole existence love can either be hot or cold or cool the cool love is a rare phenomenon the other two are well known the hot love is nothing but pure sexuality and the cold love is nothing but what happens between a wife and a husband --

it is a pretension, it is hypocrisy it is a mannerism, etiquette love is dead when it is cold it is the coldness of a corpse you still call the corpse by the same name as when the person was alive hence it is called cold love but love is no more there it is just a corpse

and you have to perfume it so it does not start stinking that's what husbands and wives continuously do perfuming, managing somehow the pretension knowing perfectly well that all has disappeared but not courageous enough to say so there are so many involvements, investments children, business, money

1/08/07

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and a thousand and one things respectability, society

and one has to think of all these things then it is cold love

both are known, both are known because each hot love ends in cold love because how long can you keep anything hot?

sooner or later it starts getting cold the honeymoon is enough

the moment the honeymoon is over the heat is gone now it is a cold thing

you can carry it your whole life cool love is a very rare phenomenon -- it happens only when there is deep meditation behind it meditation makes everything cool and the miracle of coolness is it is neither hot nor cold it is not a passion, lust, hence it is not hot and because it is never hot it never becomes cold it simply remains exactly in the middle but to attain to cool love one needs the basis of a deep, meditative silence i am teaching my people to give roots to their love into the soil of meditation then you will have cool flowers and those cool flowers are eternal they never die

because they are no more part of time to know the dimension of cool love is to have found the real home the real shelter, the real security love never grows old

if it grows old it is not love it is something else pretending to be love love always remains young

it is never childish either if it is childish it is something else it is not love

so remember, neither childish nor senile it is always young

youthfulness is its very flavour and it is always new, each moment it has the miracle of renewing itself rejuvenating itself

the body becomes old

but the heart remains always young 1/08/07

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but people are not aware of their hearts they are not aware of anything in them which remains always fresh it has to be searched for

one will have to dig into one's being because there is much rubbish accumulated the parents, the teachers, the priests the politicians -- all kinds of stupid people go on stuffing every child with nonsense and by the time the child is capable of going into himself

a great mountain of junk prevents him that junk has to be emptied out that's exactly the whole work of a sannyasin to get rid of the junk

that others have stuffed you with to clear yourself completely to clean yourself completely so that you can find your real being that you have brought with yourself the moment you find your real being you have found also love, also truth, also freedom and that experience remains fresh and to live in that freshness is bliss, is benediction one can live in it, one can die in it it continues even after death one can enjoy life, one can enjoy death because now one is identified neither with life nor with death

one knows something in oneself which is beyond all duality that is your freshness, your freedom love can be either addressed to someone or it can be unaddressed

not to somebody in particular when love is addressed to somebody it is narrow, tunnel-like

and a tunnel can become an imprisonment love addressed to somebody means you have focussed

your love energy on a single point and you have excluded the whole universe out of it just think that if love can give you so much joy in such a narrow, one-pointed way how much bliss is possible if love can be unaddressed not pointing in any direction but radiating into all directions 1/08/07

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that is the meaning of anuragini love radiating into all directions not love to somebody in particular but just a quality inside you the quality of being love itself, the quality of loving so if you touch a rock there is love you see a flower and there is love even when you are sitting all alone love is radiating

just as a lamp is burning in a room, all alone but still, the light is radiating this is the ultimate goal of love and the moment one can allow oneself so much love-full-ness

one knows the greatest ecstasy possible there is nothing beyond it there is nothing more to life being love means

the mystery of existence has been contacted you have become part of the miraculous the mysterious, the unknowable and to become part of it is the ecstasy without it one lives in misery in a dark night of the soul love brings light, love brings life and not ordinary live

but eternal life, abundant life The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #17

Chapter title: None

17 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103175

ShortTitle: CLAPP17

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one thing very significant to be remembered is 1/08/07

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that contentment does not mean satisfaction satisfaction is pseudo contentment deep down there is discontentment satisfaction is only a cover-up, it is a mind trick otherwise life would become impossible if the wound of discontentment is continuously there

one cannot live

so humanity has created a cover-up for it that is satisfaction

it is a very thin layer hence scratch a little bit and the discontent starts oozing out like pus contentment is a totally different phenomenon it is the healing of the wound contentment comes

through understanding the nature of desire the nature of desire is unfulfillable there is no way to fulfil it whatsoever you do, the distance between you and your desire will remain the same the desire is just like the horizon it looks just a few miles ahead one feels that one can reach it, it is not so far away but as you move towards it, it goes on moving away the distance remains constantly the same because the horizon in fact does not exist there is no place where the earth and the sky meet it is an optical illusion -- so is desire if you desire something and you feel the moment you attain it there will be joy you can go on hoping till you attain it the moment you attain it you will see there is no joy in it

the desire and the hope has moved again farther away

the same illusion, the same hope and one goes on living one's whole life running after shadows

to understand the nature of desire that it is basically unfulfillable is the foundation of contentment the moment you see that the desire is unfulfillable desiring as such disappears and when there is no desire in the heart 1/08/07

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then one is contented

and certainly contentment is the greatest song there cannot be any song superior to contentment of course it is not a song which can be expressed through words it is a song that is only felt it is just like the heartbeat: one feels it it is so deep that it is beyond words, immeasurable but it certainly is a song, it has its own music but totally different from all the music that you have heard before we have a special word for it in the east we call it anahat nad

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

you cannot make a sound by one hand clapping but that's actually what it is because there is no other, only you are there when all the desires have disappeared all others have also disappeared the others were nothing but your objects of desire when the desire is no more the others are no more the moment desire disappears the whole world disappears then there is absolute silence, absolute aloneness but it Is not loneliness -- you are with yourself you are not lonely

in fact for the first time you enjoy your very being it is silence but not the silence of a cemetery it is very alive, it is full of joy it is the silence of the opening of a flower there is fragrance in it, life in it, colour in it it is a dance, it is a celebration the only glory possible in life is that of absolute contentment to desire is to remain a beggar even though one may be an emperor but because he desires he remains a beggar there is a famous story of a sufi mystic, farid the great moghul emperor, akbar used to come to visit him

he lived in a small village near delhi the people of the village once asked farid the emperor comes to see you 1/08/07

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and we don't even have

a small school for our children in the village you can just mention it and we can have the school do us a favour, you can tell the emperor it is impossible that he will not fulfil what you ask for farid said i will do it but because i have to ask then i will have to go to the emperor he went to see the emperor one day in the early morning he was immediately received, welcomed, taken in the emperor was praying, his morning prayer mohammedans pray five times a day he was doing his first prayer, farid stood behind listened to what the emperor was praying when he had finished the prayer the emperor raised his hands towards the sky and asked god, give me more power more wealth, greater kingdom listening to this farid laughed, turned back at his laughter, his turning back, the emperor looked he rushed over, fell at his feet and said why have you come?

and why you are going back and why did you laugh?

farid said, i used to think that you are an emperor but you are not, you are still a beggar and i am going back because i had come to ask for a school for my village children but to ask from a beggar does not look right so cannot ask

because to make a school in the village you will become a little bit poorer you are already poor

and moreover if i have to ask then why should i ask you

i can ask god himself

why have a mediator between?

desire makes everybody a beggar hence there can be no glory when one is full of desires the moment desires are dropped and the contentment settles in the innermost core of your being there is immense glory

it is the release of the hidden splendour the experience of contentment is the only real spiritual experience 1/08/07

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a contented heart

is the right climate for meditation to grow hence meditation cannot be a desire you cannot desire it

when all the desires are dropped only then meditation can start growing in you meditation is not a means to any end it is the end itself, the end unto itself hence the people who try to meditate for some purpose

are missing the whole point of it meditation is non-purposive even to desire god will hinder your meditation hence the religions

that have really developed meditation have dropped the idea of god jainism and buddhism, two religions which have developed the art of meditation to its ultimate peak

both have dropped the idea of god not that god does not exist but they have dropped the idea for the simple reason that if god is talked about then naturally one will desire to attain to god's experience buddha dropped all ideas

about heaven, paradise, moksha for the simple reason that if these ideas are there then you are giving objects for people's desire and meditation cannot grow in the climate of desiring its basic requirement is

that there should be no desire in you the moment there is no desire mind can be easily put aside because mind is a mechanism to fulfil your desires

when you don!t want to go anywhere you can put your car aside, there is no point you can give it to a friend, you can dispose of it its whole function is if you want to go somewhere mind's function is to help you fulfil your desires mind is a mechanism, a device so that you can attain

whatsoever you dream, desire, expect, hope 1/08/07

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and meditation is a state of no-mind you can put the mind aside only when there is nothing to be desired when you don't want to go anywhere when you are utterly happy, now, here this very moment

then meditation grows spontaneously, effortlessly then your silence goes on deepening and as your silence deepens you become more and more existential less and less an individual, separate from existence more and more universal, one with the existence and that oneness is really what religions have called god it is a name for an experience god is not a person

but the ultimate experience of oneness with the whole

knowledge is not wisdom

knowledge is acquired

so that you can fulfil your desires lord acton is right when he says knowledge is power

certainly knowledge gives you power power to attain your ambitions power to achieve your desires power to be somebody important but knowledge is all borrowed from the schools to the universities what goes on happening in the name of education is nothing but stuffing people's minds with borrowed knowledge

the whole educational system exists as an agent of the past

in the service of the vested interests so that you can become useful so that you can be productive so that you can be reduced into a commodity society uses knowledge to be powerful over you you use knowledge to be powerful over others wisdom is a totally different dimension it has nothing to do with power it has nothing to do with achieving any ambition wisdom happens only when one has dropped the whole stupidity of ambitiousness it is stupidity

1/08/07

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because even if you become alexander the great so what? -- he died in utter frustration he conquered almost the whole world at least the world that was known in his days and he was only thirty-three when he died he did a tremendous job of conquering the world he spent his whole energy, his whole life in conquering the world

and at the age of thirty-three he died the day he died he wanted to live one day more just one day more to see his mother because that was the distance he had to travel twenty-four hours were needed for him to reach back to his capital he was going back from india and he had promised his mother that when he had conquered the world he would come and offer the whole world to her only twenty-four hours he wanted he asked his physicians

they said we cannot do anything you cannot live more than a few minutes he said i am ready to give everything you can take half of my kingdom they said even if you give your whole kingdom we cannot save you -- it is impossible at that moment

he understood the futility of his whole effort with his whole kingdom

he could not even buy twenty-four hours he had wasted thirty-three years for conquering something

which was not even capable of purchasing twenty-four hours thirty-three years wasted, his life spent in attaining something

which is absolutely meaningless he died in utter frustration all ambitious people die in frustration they live in frustration, they die in frustration contentment is simply the understanding that the ambitious attitude towards life is unintelligent

and the moment you see the unintelligence of it desires simply evaporate from your life then you don't want to be somebody 1/08/07

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then you are perfectly happy in being nobody and in that state wisdom blossoms wisdom does not come from the outside it is the explosion of your inner consciousness it is not knowledge, it is an insight into the innermost mysteries of existence and that insight makes you immensely ecstatic because that insight gives you an authentic glimpse of your own immortality you have been here before birth and you will be here after death birth and death are small episodes in the eternity of life

and to know life eternal

is to know god, another name for god it is possible to be contented right now it need not wait for tomorrow desire has to wait for tomorrow because it will take time to arrange, manage, reach desire needs future

without future desire has no way to exist in fact it is desire that creates future otherwise there is no future time consists only of now -- the past is no more the future is not yet -- they are both non-existential only the now is existential then what is past?

past is only memory

and what is future~

future is only desire

they are dimensions of your mind not dimensions of time

past is the dust that the mind has gathered and future is the hopes, the desires, the ambitions that the mind wants to reach some goals contentment is possible

in fact, is only possible right now you cannot postpone it

if you postpone it you have turned it into a desire if somebody says i would like to be contented he is talking nonsense

because he is talking in terms of desire, and desire is just the polar opposite of contentment one has simply to see that desire takes you 1/08/07

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into the non-existential future contentment is to live this moment in its totality, passionately without diverting your mind anywhere else from the moment if one can live each moment with totality, intensity then contentment follows you like a shadow it is always with you

and to be contented is the whole of religion one need not be a christian nor a hindu or a mohammedan one needs only to be contented to be religious only a contented heart can love that's why you see in the world everybody wants to love and to be loved but it does not happen, it cannot happen because the basic requirement is missing without a background of deep contentment one is not capable of sharing love love is the fragrance of the flower of contentment and if the flower is not there, you can pretend at the most you can deceive others and yourself but it is not going to fulfil pretensions can't help, one remains frustrated everybody is trying to give love but in fact what people give to each other is only misery, not love

lovers become imprisonments to each other they don't become freedom

and love makes the other absolutely free but because love is not there the pseudo love simply tries to possess the other and the moment you possess the other you are insulting the other because you are trying

to make a property of the other this is the greatest insult hence lovers continuously quarrel for the simple reason

that both are trying to possess each other both are desiring the other both are trying to use the other as a means for their own ends this is not love

this is something very unloving it may be even hatred masquerading as love 1/08/07

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it is violence -- but the label is beautiful but labels are labels

when you taste the content then it is poison so the honeymoon is over

the moment you have gone beyond the label when you have opened the container the honeymoon is over and the misery begins all so-called love creates suffering in the world for the simple reason

that we have not prepared the ground for it in my observation

only a contented heart can share love because he has so much joy to share he is not a beggar so he is not asking give me love

he simply gives because he has so much he is like a raincloud

so full of rainwater he has to shower he does not make the other feel obliged to him either in fact he feels obliged

that the other accepted his gift he could have rejected

when love comes out of your abundance not out of an empty heart

which wants somehow to stuff itself with something when it comes as an overflowing joy then only it gives freedom then only it creates a paradise around itself wherever a man of contentment is, there is paradise it has been said in the past that the contented people enter paradise i say that is not right

the contented people don't enter paradise the contented people, wherever they are create paradise

you can throw them in hell and they will create paradise there one cannot desire truth, god, liberation, nirvana if you desire you have not understood at all desire is the barrier not the bridge desire is the wall that prevents you from the ultimate union with existence the moment you drop desiring immediately, instantly

a melting, a merging starts happening 1/08/07

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it is desire that creates a boundary around you it makes a fence around you and keeps you separate

it makes you like an island and to be separated from existence is the only misery, the only anguish because we are waves in the ocean of the infinite we are not separate

the very idea of being separate is false but we can live in that false idea and to live in the false is to suffer to live in the real is to celebrate we have to disappear into the ocean like a dewdrop slipping from the lotus leaf only a contented heart is capable of disappearing into the ocean of the whole but one does not lose anything, one gains of course one disappears as a dewdrop but one becomes the ocean

it is not a loss, it is immense gain of course before you have entered the ocean there is fear that you will be losing your identity even the dewdrops must be trembling, afraid trying to cling to the lotus leaf and that is the fear of all human beings we are clinging to our egos e are clinging to our boundaries we are clinging even to our chains because we think they are our identity our name, our form, they are all invented things we come in the world without any name and no form is ours

just watch the whole process of a child growing in the mother's womb from the first moment

to the time when the body is taken to the grave how many forms come and go no form is yours, millions of forms the moment your mother became pregnant if that small, atomic cell is shown to you or a picture of it is shown to you you will not believe that this is me but this was your form one day in fact it will be so small you will not be able to see it with your bare eyes you will need a microscope you will need something to magnify it only then will you be able to see it 1/08/07

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and you will not recognise your face there will be no face, no hands, no legs nothing at all -- this is you? you cannot believe a woman was showing her small child the album of their family

and they came across a picture of a beautiful young man

with long hair, black hair and the child was interested and he asked who is this, mum?

and the mother said this is your papa and the child said this is my papa?

then who is this guy who lives with us?

i was always thinking that he is our papa forms go on changing continuously you don't have any form

you don't bring any name with you to understand it, to see it, to realise it helps immensely

then it is not very difficult to allow oneself the quantum leap from the individual to the whole to me, to become one with the whole is the only holiness there is contentment is a beautiful flower of immense beauty, of great fragrance being with a contented man you can immediately feel

a cool breeze, a fresh breeze if you have eyes you can even see if you have ears you can hear the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

jesus says again and again to his disciples if you have eyes, see; if you have ears, hear he is not talking to blind people or deaf people he is talking to people just like you who have eyes but their eyes are so clouded they cannot see their noses are so blocked they cannot smell their ears at the most can hear but cannot listen 1/08/07

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a psychotherapist

was talking to a child whose mother had brought the child to the psychotherapist and the mother talked and talked for one hour the child was sitting there as if utterly deaf finally the psychotherapist asked the child do you have any trouble with hearing?

the child said no, i have no trouble with hearing but i have trouble with listening and the child

is making an immensely beautiful distinction between hearing and listening and the psychotherapist could understand the mother is talking too much anybody would have difficulty in listening hearing is okay, hearing is a physiological thing just your eardrums have to be right and you will hear but listening means

not only your ears are functioning but your ears are also joined with your attention you are paying attention

you are fully aware of what is happening when awareness joins with your ears then listening happens

when awareness joins with your eyes then seeing happens

when awareness joins with your hands then touching happens

otherwise one can touch mechanically contentment is something invisible the person who has it experiences it but a few others who are sensitive they can also feel it

the very presence of it is almost tangible to the alert, to the attentive that's how for thousands of years disciples have been finding the masters there is no other way, no other criterion it is not a question of logic not a question of intellect it is a question of feeling when the disciple feels the contentment when the disciple can smell the fragrance of contentment then he knows that he has come home that this is the place where he belongs that this is the man to be with that this is the light

1/08/07

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i have been seeking and searching no visible criterion is possible it is certainly invisible, a transmission beyond words but if awareness is there

then it is not something you have to imagine it is very tangible, you can touch it you can hold it in your hand your heart starts beating with a new rhythm in the east we have called it one-thousand-petalled lotus -- sahasrar when one becomes really contented then in the lake of one's consciousness a one-thousand-petalled lotus opens up that is the ultimate peak of life to die without knowing it is to have lived in vain and it is, remember, everybody's birthright just one has to claim it

it is there as a potential, it can be actualised only a commitment, an involvement, a decisiveness to make it a realisation is needed that's what sannyas is all about a commitment that i am going to work in every possible way i am going to put my whole energy into transforming my being into a beautiful flower and the very decisiveness

and the flower starts opening the moment your heart is totally involved with it a miracle happens

something suddenly starts moving within your being a new energy which has remained dormant for long becomes dynamic

when one is contented within one becomes detached

from a thousand and one things one remains in life, one does not escape from life but one lives in a totally new way in the world and yet not of the world that is detachment

one is in the world but the world is not within oneself that is detachment

i am against all escapist attitudes i don't support the idea of people escaping to the mountains, to the deserts, to the caves to the monasteries

no, not at all

it is because of this escapist attitude in the past 1/08/07

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that humanity has suffered much religion should be a way of life not a way of renouncing life it should be the art of living life it should not be cowardly

in fact all the religions in the past have been teaching cowardliness all their monks and nuns were nothing but hippies i mean literally

they had shown their hips to the world they were real hippies, they escaped from the world my sannyasins have to live in the world but live in a totally new way to live in the world

as a lotus flower lives in the lake the lotus flower is the symbol of sannyas the lotus flower has a tremendous quality about it it lives in the water but untouched by the water it is so velvety that the water cannot touch it even in the early morning

when dewdrops gather on its leaves and on its petals it remains dry, it does not become wet those dewdrops are there but they are not touching the lotus leaf or the lotus petals that's how a sannyasin should live utterly contented, utterly silent in the world and yet not of the world The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #18

Chapter title: None

18 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103185

ShortTitle: CLAPP18

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No

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the moment one becomes blissful one becomes simultaneously 1/08/07

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a beloved of the whole existence the miserable remains separate from the whole misery creates a kind of boundary it creates a prison

blissfulness is nothing but melting, merging disappearing in the whole

misery is centered in the ego, bliss is egolessness and the ego can never be the beloved of existence because it is a false entity the existence does not give any recognition to false entities

hence the egoist suffers, he lives in hell only egolessness brings paradise to you to be initiated into sannyas means basically, essentially initiation into egolessness bliss comes naturally

and one becomes the beloved of the whole without any effort

it is our birthright

but we have to drop the false to be in tune with the real the experience of bliss

needs as a basic requirement courageousness and nothing else

the miserable is always a coward for the simple reason

that he cannot drop even the false he clings to the false -- the ego not only that, he clings even to his misery he cannot even renounce his misery remember a basic law: misery does not cling to you it has no interest in you --

it is your investment in misery it is your clinging with misery that keeps you imprisoned, keeps you in hell courage simply means

dropping all that is ugly, all that is false and that creates unnecessary suffering yes, there is some necessary suffering also but that is a totally different phenomenon necessary suffering

is that which one has to pass through if one wants to reach to the heights 1/08/07

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then one has to go uphill

that is necessary suffering but it is worth it, it is a joy, in fact people are clinging to unnecessary misery which is absolutely not needed at all it does not help your growth -- it hinders but courage is needed to drop it why is courage needed to drop it?

because we have some investment in it the miserable person is getting attention through his misery sympathy through his misery compassion through his misery the more he gets people's sympathy attention, kindness, compassion the more he becomes clinging to his misery he knows it is because of misery that he is the centre of everybody else's attention this is fulfilling his ego but on the other hand it is nursing his misery it is keeping his wound alive it does not allow the wound to heal a simple courage is needed to drop all this because sympathy is not love compassion is not love

getting attention for wrong reasons you cannot really be contented and what can attention give to you?

it can simply give you a bigger ego which will be more heavy to carry -- that's all you will be burdened with it crushed under its weight

gather courage to drop all this and the moment you drop it immediately there is bliss because bliss is our nature it has not to be created, it is already there we just have to remove the hindrances that's the whole art of sannyas removing the hindrances

eliminating the obstructions the moment those rocks are no more there the river of bliss starts flowing it starts moving towards the ocean 1/08/07

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towards the ultimate bliss of merging with the whole bliss is always young, always fresh, always green as far as bliss is concerned it is always spring the fall never comes, the death never comes bliss is eternal life

hence the longing of everyone is to search and seek bliss, to find it everybody is trying in his own ways to find it of course, out of a hundred ways ninety-nine are wrong

hence very few people attain it but this is the way life functions this is the way life gives you an opportunity to be intelligent, to be aware, to experiment to make mistakes and errors because that is the only way to learn you have to knock on ninety-nine doors before you can find the right door even those ninety-nine doors are helpful don't think of them as enemies because they help you to find the hundredth door they are all pointing towards the hundredth door life is a trial and error experiment that's the only way to grow to sharpen one's intelligence if there was only one door then there would be no difference between the stupid and the intelligent both would enter from the same door the stupid is one who gets stuck in a wrong door the intelligent also knocks on the wrong door but never gets stuck there -- he goes on moving he goes on searching until he finds the right door it is a beautiful exploration a tremendously thrilling adventure enjoy the search, rejoice in the seeking and the person who can enjoy the very search, the very pilgrimage is not far away from the right door he is bound to find it

pleasure gives you the appearance of bliss but it is not bliss -- it tricks you, it tickles you 1/08/07

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for a moment it befools you, but only for a moment and again you are back to the same state of despair happiness also is another hallucination pleasure is physiological, happiness is psychological for example, a person taking some drug like lsd feels a certain happiness but it is not bliss even a man like aldous huxley was deceived a very intelligent man but he believed that he had attained through Lsd the same experience

as the buddha, as jesus christ, as lao tzu it is not possible through chemicals chemicals can only create a dreamworld and when their effect is lost you are back on the same earth, in the same state even in fact far more miserable than before because now you have seen a dream beautiful dream

and you will miss it

but this is not new

not only aldous huxley is deceived it has been one of the most ancient things from the ancientmost scripture of the world, rigveda up to now, people have been deceived by drugs in rigveda it is called soma but it is exactly something like marijuana, Lsd, pscilocybin one can feel a dreamworld, a beautiful dreamworld but it does not last and the definition of bliss is that it begins but it never ends if it ends then it is either pleasure or happiness either physiological or psychological but it has nothing to do with the spiritual the spiritual is the dimension of eternity bliss is homeless

hence it is ever green, always young, always fresh the only way to attain it is meditation the body cannot give it to you the mind cannot give it to you only the state of no-mind

that's what meditation is: a state of no-mind the moment you enter into the state of no-mind in that immense silence, that profound virgin silence you have entered into bliss, into the world of bliss samo is a word that means balance, stillness, silence 1/08/07

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it simply means coming to an inner space within you where there is no disturbance at all, no distraction where past is no more hovering over you where future is no more pulling you where only the present exists where only this moment is all in that silence, in that stillness, one hears the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

the eternal music of existence and that's what bliss is

to become part of that eternal silence which is also an eternal song, but a song of silence unuttered, unexpressed

a dance at the innermost shrine of your being with no movement

it is one of the most mysterious experiences a song without any words

a dance without any movement a music which cannot be heard but can only be tasted, experienced the ordinary science

is concerned with everything except bliss it is concerned with the whole existence except the consciousness of the scientist itself it is a very strange phenomenon that the scientist is interested in all kinds of things except in his own consciousness -- who he is that is not his problem at all, that is not his quest the knower remains unknown to him and he goes on accumulating knowledge about everything else

vigyan means a special science special in the sense that it is concerned with the knowing of the knower itself its only concern is to know the knower who am i? is its only quest and the moment you know who you are simultaneously you know bliss too because you are made of the stuff called bliss 1/08/07

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you consist of only one thing -- that is bliss gautam the buddha used to say if you taste sea water from any place it is always salty

if you taste your consciousness from any door, from any method, from any path you will always taste bliss bliss takes you beyond time without bliss you remain a slave of time time is continuously changing hence to remain in time

means constantly being uprooted from one place to another place you cannot grow, it is impossible to grow in time it is just continuously replanting there is no opportunity to grow roots to be centered, to be grounded time is fleeting so fast

and you have to keep pace with time you have to go on running

you have to go on being more and more speedy to keep your pace with time otherwise you will be left behind to live in time means

to live a life of continuous change, movement you cannot find even a moment's rest even in your sleep you are dreaming that means even in your sleep you are running bliss is beyond time, hence instead of a slave it makes you a god, a god of time time starts serving you

ordinarily people serve time and time ultimately takes you to death it cannot take you anywhere else the grave is the goal

it makes you run faster and faster and faster till you fall in your own grave then only it leaves you

it goes on pushing you towards the grave in sanskrit we have one word for both time and death -- kal

for the simple reason that time means death kalesh means god of time

and the moment you become a master of time 1/08/07

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you also become a master of death then time serves you, death serves you both become your servants

but the whole secret lies in transcending time and it is possible, the key is there within us the key is to get out of the mind mind is within the grip of time and death the moment you slip out of the mind you are outside time and death and to slip out of the mind takes you into the world of bliss then there is only rejoicing and eternal life bliss is multi-dimensional it has many aspects to it

one of its aspects is it is a flame, a light once the flame is lit within you all darkness disappears

the darkness cannot exist with the flame and when there is no darkness within you your whole life is transformed because your whole life was dominated by darkness now it is dominated by light darkness within

whatsoever you do is going to be wrong even the right, with all good intentions is going to be wrong -- that is inevitable and one can experience it

parents want to do everything right for their child of course they think they love the child but they only think

deep down they are so full of darkness love is not possible

and with all the good intentions they start crippling the child, paralysing, poisoning with all their superstitions and stupidities they go on burdening the child they are trying to make the child live exactly the same life as they have lived and they have never tasted bliss yet they want the child

to be just a carbon copy of themselves it is absolutely unconscious with all good intentions

they are creating hell for the child their parents created hell for them and now they are doing the same to their children and the children will go on doing the same to their children

1/08/07

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that's how from generation to generation man is being poisoned from the very source the teachers are trying to do something good but all that they manage to do is stuff your mind with borrowed knowledge they themselves are not wise how can they help you to be wise?

the priests are doing everything good for you and they are the greatest mischievous people in the world, not knowing at all they have destroyed the whole human past in the name of religion

all kinds of crimes have been committed murders, people have been burnt alive and not one or two, millions of people in the name of god, in the name of christianity in the name of islam, in the name of hinduism beautiful names but the reason is simple unless you have your inner light whatsoever you do is going to be wrong hence my emphasis is not to do right my emphasis is to be right then whatsoever you do is going to be right that is secondary

then there is no need to be worried about it and to be right means to be full of light bliss is a light, misery is darkness and that light is not far away you are not to travel to a star to find it you have just to go within -- it is just so close to you just a little turning, a hundred-eighty-degree turning just changing your focus from the outside and looking in is enough

once you start looking in

you are bound to find the flame it is already there -- neglected, ignored once you pay attention to it, it starts burning bright your attention becomes its food its nourishment, its fuel

hence meditation is nothing but the art of becoming attentive, aware, alert our whole education is rooted in a false notion of creating the ego in the child even the psychologists go on emphasising that the ego has to be strengthened these psychologists also don't know the experience of egolessness they are as unaware as anybody else 1/08/07

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as unenlightened as anybody else and in their ignorance

they think unless you have a very strong ego you will not be able to compete in life and it is a tough competition you have to be strong to give a good fight it is a struggle, the survival of the fittest so you have to be fit to survive that's what our education is it is in fact miseducation because its whole foundation is wrong it is rooted in the idea of the ego real education will help you to dissolve the ego to drop the very idea of conflict struggle, fight, war

in fact one has to be in a deep communion with the whole -- relaxed, restful, at home to me that is religiousness and the reward is bliss

and there cannot be any greater reward dissolve the ego, let it evaporate and only then will you find a tremendous explosion of such joy

that you could not have even dreamt of it before when it happens for the first time it is absolutely unbelievable, it is so vast it is so infinite that one cannot believe that one is capable of it

one tries

perhaps i am dreaming, perhaps i am imagining but the miracle is such that once it happens it goes on deepening

sooner or later you have to trust it sooner or later you have to come to understand that this is what you were missing this is what

you were always seeking and searching unconsciously

ego is the only barrier

and egolessness is the only bridge to god one has to become a nobody, a nothingness only then bliss happens

because only then there is a space enough for the infinite to become a guest in your being 1/08/07

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otherwise we are so much cluttered with all kinds of rubbish, junk, crap that the infinite cannot be a guest we cannot be a host to the divine and bliss is divine, another name for god one can invite bliss

only if one has prepared one's being and the preparation means

if one has emptied oneself out completely all the ideologies have to be thrown out all the scriptures have to be burned not literally, not the scriptures on the outside they have nothing to do with you but nothing inside should remain no ideology, no religion, no theology one should become utterly empty of all ideas and then the miracle is bound to happen exactly at the moment you are totally empty it happens

and it does not happen

as if something is coming from the outside it happens exactly at the centre of your being as if something has suddenly blossomed in you it was always there as a potential; it becomes actual we have only to create space and any limited space won't do it has to be unlimited

hence i say one has to become a zero the moment the zero is there perfection happens on its own accord bliss and wisdom are two sides of the same coin only a blissful person is wise and only a wise person is blissful they happen together

the fool cannot be blissful howsoever scholarly he is

howsoever knowledgeable he is he cannot be blissful

and the blissful person

howsoever uneducated he is, uninformed cannot be other than wise

1/08/07

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he cannot be otherwise

jesus is not a knowledgeable person neither is mohammed nor is kabir all the three are uneducated, absolutely uneducated not great scholars or philosophers not knowledgeable in any way just innocent people

but immensely wise, absolutely wise their wisdom knows no bounds their wisdom is as vast as the whole sky their wisdom is infinite

hence wisdom has to be understood what actually it is

it is knowing your own being it is an experience of your own innermost core it is entering into your own centre the moment you enter your very centre the innermost shrine of your being a miracle happens

you are innocent and yet

you have such tremendous insight into everything it is not knowledge, it is insight your life is lived now in a wise way your each step is full of wisdom your each word contains scriptures even your silence is a sermon and the miracle of this blissfulness, this wisdom happens through a simple art of watching your mind

mind is knowledge

if you can watch your mind in all its functions if you can watch all its knowledge you become separate from it the watcher becomes separate from the watched and that very separation

is the beginning of bliss and wisdom when you are totally aware that you are not the mind you have prepared yourself for the miracle to happen

it inevitably happens

just we have to be ready for it sannyas is a preparation for wisdom, for bliss for freedom, for love -- for all that is really valuable 1/08/07

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The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #19

Chapter title: None

19 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103195

ShortTitle: CLAPP19

Audio:

No

Video:

No

all power is divine

we are only vehicles, passages we are like a hollow bamboo flute our function is to allow god to flow through us the song is divine

the song does not belong to the flute all that the flute can do is not to disturb it not to block it, not to hinder it, but to allow it the function of the flute is in a way negative just not to obstruct

and then the song goes on flowing that's where our ego creates trouble the ego is a block

it fills the hollow bamboo flute and stops the song from flowing through it then life becomes obviously a misery, an anguish it misses the song -- that song is our very life god is our very life

god is not some person somewhere but our very heartbeat, our very existence and the ego is our enemy but very cunning it pretends to be our friend, our greatest friend sannyas simply means

seeing the destructiveness of the ego and dropping it... in a single blow, not gradually it cannot be dropped gradually either one sees the point and drops it or one goes on carrying it hoping some day to drop it but that very hope is illusory 1/08/07

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when your house is on fire you don't wait for tomorrow you rush out of it

you don't even think to get out in a proper way from the main gate, from the main door you even jump out of a window and if you are taking a bath naked you jump naked out of the window you don't even wait to wrap around a towel when the house is on fire

one cannot postpone even for a single moment and the house is on fire

everybody is suffering, everybody is burning in hell everybody is living in such misery, anguish there is no joy, no song, no dance for the simple reason

because these things belong to god, not to us they can belong to us only if we disappear if we are not in the way, if we allow god to flow through us

in that absolute let-go

in that surrender is sannyas sannyas is not surrender to me it is not surrender to anybody in particular it is simply surrender to the whole to this vast, infinite existence and the moment you dissolve yourself in it life becomes a sheer joy

man without the experience of the divine is nothing but a darkness, an unending darkness a dark night of the soul

and all hope for the dawn is futile it is not going to come

unless we invite the divine the dawn cannot come we have to become hosts to the divine that's what meditation is all about creating a receptivity for the divine to come in and the divine certainly comes like a flame the moment the flame enters you you become aflame

1/08/07

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your whole life is transformed into light the sun does not rise on the outside, it rises within and once there is light within your whole life has a luminosity each act has a tremendous beauty to it, a grace a totality, a passionate intensity each moment

becomes so tremendously deep and profound that it starts containing the whole eternity in it all that is needed on our part is to be totally vulnerable, available, open the guest is always knocking on the door but our doors are closed

the flame wants to enter in but we don't allow it we live in fear and for thousands of years religions have been teaching people to live in fear in fact they call a religious person a god-fearing person

that is sheer nonsense

god is nothing to be afraid of a religious person

is a god-loving person not god-fearing why should he fear?

and if you are even afraid of god whom are you going to love? -- because god is all my sannyasins have to change the whole gestalt that has been implanted within you by the society i teach love not fear

and only love can be open

only love can be inviting, only love can trust and the moment you trust

you can open the doors of your heart and immediately, instantly, the miracle happens the word ecstasy is of immense significance literally it means to stand outside yourself that's the actual meaning of ecstasy standing outside of yourself, standing out of the ego and the moment you are out of the ego you are in god

to be in the ego

is to be millions of miles away from god and to be out of the ego

is to be at the very heart of the divine and if one understands, if one tries to see the point 1/08/07

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it is not difficult

because the ego

has never brought any joy to anybody it only brings agony

it brings more and more pain more and more suffering

ego is like a wound

that continuously hurts and is very touchy to come out of the ego is to be healed is to be whole, is to be holy and to come out of the ego nothing else is needed only one thing

a deep insight into the very phenomenon of the ego what it has brought

it promises much but it never delivers the goods n the whole history of humanity not a single person has been able to say ego has given me bliss and all the persons who have lived blissfully have said, without any exception that bliss has happened

only when they dropped the ego the mathematics is very simple it is one of the most absolute laws of life without any exception

it is the very science of religion get out of the ego and suddenly the spring comes and thousands of flowers start blossoming in you sannyas is a divine revolution it is not a modification, a reformation it is revolution

it is dropping the past absolutely and entering into a totally new dimension only then one can taste what godliness is if you carry your past with you, you remain old and every day you go on becoming older because the past becomes bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier

if you drop the whole past and start afresh you are again young

and only the young consciousness can have a contact with the divine because there is nothing in between if you are carrying the past then the past functions as a barrier, as a wall it is a china wall, very thick and it goes on growing thicker every moment because every moment the past is becoming bigger something is added to the past 1/08/07

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sannyas begins when you drop the past and suddenly

you feel a weightlessness, as if you can fly and then one has to remember not to accumulate the past again then one has to die every moment to the past so that one is reborn every moment to the present that's the only true way to live dying to the past

living in the present

that contains my whole religion man is capable of melting and merging into his own innermost core and that is the space where absolute silence reigns where no noise has ever penetrated it is against nature and the law of nature no noise can ever enter into your innermost shrine the silence is virgin

but it is not a dead silence it is very alive, it is full of music it has a song of its own

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

it has a dance of its own

but it is impossible to express it in language language is made to express the noise of the mind beyond the mind is your silence hence there is no way to express it but it can be experienced

and that's the only thing that matters: experience and its experience transforms you then your whole life becomes a celebration a subtle undercurrent of joy permeates you pervades you

you live in the world

you live in the whole noise of the world but now it doesn't matter

because now

it cannot distract you from your inner centre to know that inner space

1/08/07

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is to know the centre of the cyclone and then the cyclone too is beautiful you remain centred in all kinds of situations success or failure, poverty or richness, life or death the inner centering remains the same to attain it is the goal of sannyas the knowledgeable person

has no way to know the divine because his knowledgeability gives him great ego knowledge

is the most ego-nourishing phenomenon far more than money, political power, etcetera because political power can be taken away money can be lost, your bank can go bankrupt it is easy to lose it

but knowledge is something which nobody can take away from you hence it gives the ego the most stable ground the knowledgeable person has never known god hence jesus says be like a small child again and again he repeats it unless you are like a small child you will not enter into my kingdom of god to nicodemus he says unless you are born again it is not possible to experience the divine the whole insistence is on innocence the same innocence as the child has drop all your knowledge

it is rubbish, it has no inner value in fact it is a disvalue it is not a qualification for the inner world but a disqualification unburden yourself from knowledge and then innocence will be discovered and that is really treasure once you have tasted your own innocence you have tasted god -- it is the same call it innocence, call it godliness these are different names for the same experience silence has three gates to pass one is the most peripheral: speaking speak only telegraphically speak the essential and you will be surprised 1/08/07

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that almost ninety per cent of your talking is useless only ten per cent will do

and you will also be surprised that ten per cent will become more effective because that ninety per cent that unnecessary burden

is no more there

words become more pregnant when you don't go round-about when you go directly

and if one has to be telegraphic one has to go directly

that's why you can write a long letter but it doesn't have that effect a small telegram is more effective in india this is a common practice people will write long letters and in the end they will write think of it as a telegram

but how to think after such a long letter?

a telegram has to be telegraphic all the great scriptures of the world are telegraphic that is the meaning of the sanskrit word sutra just a hint has been given but very pregnant this is the first step

be telegraphic, speak the essential and drop the non-essential and then the second step

think only the essential

and you will be surprised

ninety-nine per cent is unessential only one percent maybe is essential that too i say maybe, perhaps otherwise it is all holy cow dung so drop thinking unnecessarily about unnecessary things

and people are thinking about all kinds of things relevant, irrelevant

i receive such questions

why do dogs bark at the moon?

now the person who is thinking this question is really a great thinker

he is neither a dog, nor is he a moon what is his concern about it? Let the dogs bark it is something between the dog and the moon you are unnecessarily poking your nose in it 1/08/07

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but just curiosity

and people go on thinking about useless things so drop useless thinking

and you will be saving so much energy that the third step can be taken the third step is the most subtle feel only the essential

and if you come to the essential then there is only love

anger, greed, lust

all these things are non-essential they are parasites, they are exploiting you when you come to the essential only love remains and when your heart is only full of love you can enter into the very centre of silence these three things have to be passed the outer part of the mind -- talking the inner part of the mind -- thinking and the innermost part of the mind -- feeling and when you have passed all these three then there is silence

and that silence is the door to the divine freedom is one of the most fundamental things and we are living in all kinds of bondages the bondage of a certain church the bondage of a certain race the bondage of a certain nationality and so on and so forth

these are all imprisonments, prisons within prisons and if one really wants to know the truth one has to get out of all this stupidity that humanity has been carrying for thousands of years

one has just to be a consciousness a pure consciousness

that is freedom

neither hindu nor mohammedan nor christian neither atheist nor theist, neither black nor white these are non-essential things one should not get lost

in the jungle of the non-essential the essential thing is your consciousness and consciousness

is neither hindu nor mohammedan nor christian nor jew

it is not even masculine or feminine it is neither black nor white it is neither young nor old 1/08/07

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no category is applicable to it it is beyond all categories hence it has immense freedom freedom is divine

because it allows you to know the truth freedom means freedom from all prejudices from all a priori conclusions a child met the priest of the town in the garden he said good morning, father the priest looked at the child, a beautiful child and the way he greeted him he asked him, but i never see you in the church the child said, that's true because i don't belong to your abomination these denominations are really abominations these churches, these temples, these mosques are nothing but beautiful ways of creating prisoners be free so that you can be yourself initiation into sannyas is initiation into freedom into being yourself

i don't give you any creed, any dogma any abomination

i simply want you to be utterly yourself and then god is not far away he is just by the corner

we have not lost anything, we have just forgotten god is still there, truth is still there love is still there, bliss is still there nothing has been lost but we have forgotten it we are living in a kind of sleep we need a certain awakening and that's the function of a master to hit the disciple

in such a way that he has to wake up and certainly the master has to be merciless out of compassion he has to be merciless he has to hit hard on the head just a good hit on the head and one wakes up all the methods of meditation 1/08/07

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are nothing but certain ways of hitting the very source of your sleepiness once you start awakening, just a little wakefulness is enough to remind you of what you have forgotten and then there is no problem then you can start working on your own searching inside, where you have put things and how you forgot

sati is a beautiful word

it contains the essential core of all spiritual methods remembering

so one need not be worried because nothing is lost one should rejoice that even if we have forgotten it is still there

so just a little effort is needed to wake up just a little effort to come out of your dreams and anything can be of help sometimes even accidents can help just for a moment you lose your sleepiness and suddenly all is remembered this remembrance happens always in a sudden way hence my way is the way of sudden enlightenment one goes on hitting one's head against many things because one never knows which hit from what source, is going to help it may be the same pillow that you hit or the same pillar again and again one never knows

it may be the ninety-ninth number or the hundredth but there comes a point

when remembrance happens

sometimes it can happen even in the first hit it depends how thick is the sleepiness, how dense people have different layers it depends on their conditioning how they have been conditioned every child has been conditioned so every child will need a certain hit to be with a master

is possible only if you love immensely because the master is going to hit you unless you trust you won't allow anybody to hit you it is going to be a surgical operation you have to trust the surgeon 1/08/07

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because you will be on the table, under chloroform and who knows what the surgeon is going to do?

i have heard about a jew

who was going to be operated upon he said wait

he took out his purse

and started counting his money the doctor said

there is no need to pay right now you can pay later on

he said who is going to pay?

i am simply counting my money because when i am under chloroform, who knows?

i don't trust you

he is trusting him for the operation but he cannot trust for the money money seems to be more valuable to people than their life itself

but to be with a master one has to understand it that love is more valuable than life itself the relationship between a master and a disciple is a love affair

it is the highest peak of trust because it is the greatest operation there is no other operation bigger than this your whole life has to be transformed it is possible -- one just has to allow it one has to open one's heart so that one is always ready to welcome the unknown, the unknowable we live in the known

and we are afraid of the unknown so we keep our doors closed to the unknown what to say about the unknowable?

to allow the unknown to enter we are not even ready

but to live in the known means to live in a rut it is boring

that's why the whole humanity seems so bored utterly bored, bored with everything unless one opens doors to the unknown life never becomes a joy, a deep adventure the moment you open the doors for the unknown the moment you welcome the unknown you are allowing new, fresh winds to come in the rain, the sun, the stars 1/08/07

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the fragrance of the flowers and with all these, slowly slowly comes the divine first you have to be open to the unknown and when you have started enjoying then you can risk one step more you can go a little deeper you can become open to the unknowable the world of the unknown

is the world of poetry, music, dance the world of aesthetics

and the world of the unknowable is the world of religion

and the world of the known is the world of business marketplace, ordinary existence day-to-day existence

a sannyasin first has to be open to the unknown and then finally to the unknowable that is the meaning of swagat: a welcoming heart and then the impossible becomes possible there are two ways to approach the divine one is of meditation, awareness the other is of love

both are valid ways, their starting point is different but their ultimate goal is the same they meet when you have reached and not only that they meet at one point in the end if you have followed the way of meditation then love comes as a shadow to it, as a by-product if you have followed the way of love then meditation comes as a shadow of it as a consequence of it

they happen together finally but the starting point can be different for you my suggestion is

love will be the best way to follow love the whole existence, love as much as you can because the more you love

the more capable of love you will become this is the law of love

the more vou love the more love vou have the less you love the less love you have when you love infinitely

you start having an inexhaustible love within you some sources that have remained always hidden suddenly open up

some springs which have never been flowing 1/08/07

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start flowing

but one has to be unconditional: love but don't ask anything in return love for the sheer joy of love and then wait for the miracle it happens, it happens inevitably just one has to love and wait sow the seeds of love and wait and the moment certainly comes when those seeds start sprouting they start becoming plants, leaves start growing foliage comes, then buds

then flowers and the fragrance that fragrance is godliness love is the beginning, godliness is the end The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #20

Chapter title: None

20 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103205

ShortTitle: CLAPP20

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the phenomenon of awareness is paradoxical half of it, the first half, is human effort the other half, the second half, is a divine gift one has to do the utmost one can do to attain it but it is not attained only by that it is not attained without it either the human effort prepares you to receive the gift if you are unprepared and the gift comes you will not even be able to recognise it there is no question of receiving it, welcoming it so the first part is absolutely necessary but one should not get the idea that one attains it through effort the effort only removes the barriers it is negative

the moment the barriers are removed 1/08/07

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the door is open, the heart is available the gift comes, it is a happening, it is not a doing hence one should not get egoistic about one's efforts

because ultimately it happens effortlessly it simply showers on you

and the moment it showers

one comes to know that whatsoever i have done has nothing to do with-it

i was simply removing the stones the rocks on the way

the guest was always ready to come i was only opening the door the guest is not my creation the guest was already there just waiting at the door

all that i have done is open the door which is not much

but without opening the door the guest cannot enter either hence it is called the effortless effort one has to be really diligent it is an uphill task, you have to move upwards when you are coming down the hill there is no effort when you are going up the hill immense effort is needed

the higher the altitude the more effort is needed but when you reach the peak what you see there has nothing to do with your effort of course your effort has got you to the peak but the vision, the vast sky and the immensely beautiful valleys all around the stars

they are not your creation but you would have missed them if you had not come to the peak hence one has to continuously balance between effort and no-effort something has to be done

and something has not to be done they appear contradictory

they are not -- they are complementary you have to do your part

the moment your part is fulfilled existence does its own part but if you have been half-heartedly doing then existence will not do its part you have to be in your effort totally without holding anything back 1/08/07

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when you risk all, existence comes with immense blessings, benedictions existence loves and respects a person who has put everything to the stake and awareness is something that can happen only when you are totally devoted to it sannyas is nothing but an initiation first into effort

and then into effortless receptivity existence is basically made of awareness science may never be able to discover it because science's very methodology prevents it but still science has come very close to it just thirty years ago

science was absolutely certain that existence consists of matter now it is no more so

matter is dead, matter has evaporated matter exists not

now science says we were deceived because of our limited instruments existence does not consist of matter but of pure energy

but the energy is revolving with such speed that it creates the illusion of matter it is just like an electric fan going with great speed

and you cannot see its three blades it looks like a wheel

that wheel is only illusory if it really goes with the speed of light you can sit on it

and you will not feel those blades moving the speed will be so much

one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second that you can sit on it

and you will not feel that anything is moving it will be absolutely static for you that's actually what is happening when you see the wall

it seems to be so solid -- nothing is solid just the speed is so fast

otherwise you can walk through it it is just the speed

if it can be lowered a little bit you can walk through the wall through the mountain

there is no problem because it is pure energy 1/08/07

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there is nothing solid any more this is a great advance that science has to concede reluctantly they conceded

because to say that existence consists of energy is to come very close to the mystics they have always been saying existence is energy they say something more too they say that energy is awareness science may never be able to know that for the simple reason

it has no way to experience awareness it can be experienced only through meditation and the moment you experience awareness the whole existence

is immediately revealed to you as awareness not only that, it starts converging on you immediately, instantly you become the centre of it you become the beloved of the whole and to be beloved of the whole is to be blissful, is to be ecstatic because that is the only love that can be eternal the more aware you become, the more loving the less aware, the less loving the unconscious person

is absolutely incapable of love neither can he give nor can he receive and everybody is hankering longing to love and to be loved but everybody is unconscious it is not possible

it is like a blind person trying to see the light and trying to see the colour of the flowers and trying to see the stars because people talk so much of their beauty but how can the blind man see the colours of the flowers and the rainbow and the stars and the moon?

it is impossible

what is needed is not any effort to come to come to the flower, to look at the sky because those blind eyes

even if turned towards the sky will not see the stars

the blind person needs his eyes to be cured he needs a physician, he does not need to be led by poets, by philosophers

he needs a physician

and a true master is a physician not a philosopher he tries to give you something 1/08/07

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that is already in you but unopened he gives you a third eye, that is awareness he helps you to become aware and as you start becoming aware you are surprised love starts happening of its own accord and you have always been longing for it and now it is coming of its own accord one simply becomes pure love when awareness has blossomed when the flower of awareness is there there is the fragrance of love it is inevitable

awareness is the seed -- it is there it just needs the right soil the right climate, a right gardener and soon the day will come when the seed will dissolve into the soil and the hidden will become real the heart of the seed will start growing then flowers are not far away the first leaves herald the coming of the flowers sannyas is only a climate, a soil the master is a gardener

you have all that you need but it is in the potential, it has to be actualised there is no real difficulty in its realisation one just has to dissolve one's ego in the soil that ego is just like the hard shell that surrounds the seed

it is protective -- that is its function but if that hard shell surrounding the seed rejects dissolving into the soil then it is no more protective, it is destructive the ego is a necessity in the world otherwise you will not be able to survive there are so many egos all around they will crush you

they will use you as a stepping stone you will be destroyed by all those egos your own ego gives you a certain protection a certain safety

it creates a hard barrier between you and the others they cannot penetrate you

it is not easy to go deep into you and hurt you ego helps you not to be hurt by others as far as the world is concerned it is okay the moment you start moving inwards the ego has to dissolve

1/08/07

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otherwise it won't allow your reality to blossom that's what sannyas is

a readiness on the part of the disciple to dissolve the ego

and once the ego is dissolved miracles start happening

it is a miracle

those first two leaves coming out of the ground one could not have imagined that the seed contains these two green leaves and then the tree goes on

becoming bigger, gathering greater foliage it can become a big tree

almost whispering with the clouds it can blossom, it can become flowers, fruits and only then one is fulfilled that is the state of buddhahood the awakened state of consciousness awareness is a method

a means to attain consciousness one has to become aware of the outer world when you are watching something be alert

don't just behave like a zombie that's how people are behaving they are looking at a thing and not looking at all because their mind is somewhere else their eyes are empty, there is no attention they are hearing something but they are not listening their awareness is not there behind their ears so this is the first thing to be done become aware of the outside world this noise of the train

or an aeroplane passing by or the traffic never think of these things as distractions they are not

use them as objects for becoming alert and aware and you will be surprised

everything can be used

and then there is no distraction then the whole life is helping you to become aware 1/08/07

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nothing can distract you

you can go into the marketplace and you can use every noise every nuisance that is going on as an object for becoming more alert in fact it is easier to be aware in a marketplace than in a monastery

the second thing to be aware of is your own body and its acts, what you are doing just becoming more aware of each movement each gesture

and that will release an even greater awareness than the outside world

then become aware of your thoughts and you are coming closer to home and the closer you come

more and more release of awareness will be there then watch your emotions, your moods and you have come very close for the explosion of consciousness when you are capable of watching the outside world the physiological activities the activities of the mechanism of the mind and the mechanism of the heart you are ready for the quantum leap then you can simply jump into yourself you will suddenly find yourself centred, grounded rooted in your own being

and that is the flowering of consciousness that's the ultimate goal of all religions there is no other truth

truth is not something outside you it is the very innermost core of your being it is the explosion of consciousness awareness, watchfulness

the moment your inner being explodes all becomes light

then life is lived in a totally different way of course one lives in the same ordinary life but with such extraordinary delight with such extraordinary intensity, love, joy that one cannot imagine it it is not comprehensible by the mind mind is always wishy-washy it cannot conceive the total intensity of the state of no-mind

and awareness is the state of no-mind it is pure silence, profound silence depthless, bottomless, abysmal silence 1/08/07

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the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

that's our truth; that's the truth philosophy is incapable of finding it because it only goes on thinking about it it has to be found in a state of no-thought, no-mind in a state of absolute clarity consciousness, transparency no other beauty can be compared with it because it is not one of the beauties amongst others it is the very source

of the experience of the beautiful the moment one is aware

the whole existence becomes beautiful to look at it with awareness is a transformation not only the person

is transformed through awareness but the whole universe

it remains the same universe but because you are no more the same your perspective is no more the same your attitude is no more the same your understanding is no more the same then in a sense it is the same universe but in another sense

it is a totally different universe you have never known it before then everything

starts having a tremendous beauty a luminous quality

then everything

is surrounded by a beautiful aura then everything

has a tremendously graceful vibe about it one starts living in the mysterious, the miraculous then the whole life is poetry the whole existence is a song the whole universe

is nothing but dance and celebration knowledge needs no awareness you can remain as unconscious as you like still you can go on accumulating knowledge because it is borrowed, it needs no awareness you are simply functioning like a computer 1/08/07

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you are using your mind as a machine a memory machine

and it has the capacity to carry imprints to contain memory

it has immense capacity, almost infinite they say that a single brain system can contain all the libraries of the world and one need not be aware

in soviet russia

they have developed a system of education so that children can be taught even while they are asleep they will just have earphones while they are sleeping

and in a very silent way

almost in a whisper

they will be fed knowledge and their minds will record it and they will be asleep

they will not know what is being recorded but in the morning if you ask them they will be able to answer your questions they will be themselves surprised because they had never learned as far as they know but they learned during their sleep if it is possible during sleep then there is no problem

people can be unconscious

that's what they are

and they can go on gathering knowledge but wisdom is a totally different phenomenon the first

the most basic requirement is to be aware

because wisdom means

experiencing the truth of your being it cannot be experienced while you are asleep unaware, unconscious

all knowledge is borrowed, hence ugly, a burden wisdom has beauty because it is your own knowledge is a bondage, wisdom is a freedom and because it comes through awareness it makes you more and more full of light at the ultimate peak of wisdom one and one's wisdom are not two separate things one is simply wise

there is no wisdom separate one's very existence is wise 1/08/07

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then whatsoever one does is right then one need not follow any commandment any morality, any ethics

one can drop all these burdens one's wisdom is enough to give him every moment the right response

the right approach

the right vision

a wise man lives unburdened because he need not depend on any ready-made answers

he is capable of responding to any challenge he is just like a mirror

reflecting every situation and acting accordingly

that's how a sannyasin has slowly slowly to grow into wisdom

awareness is the way, wisdom is the goal christ is not a christian

he had never heard the word even he never belonged to the church there was no church to belong to he was a man of awareness

that is true religion

buddha had never heard of buddhism either but he lived the true religion the religion of awareness

and that is true about all the really authentic religious people of the world others are only phony: the polack pope and ayatollah khomaniac

and the shankaracharyas

these are all phony people they have not tasted from the well of awareness they have not gone in

they are simply repeating like parrots the scriptures that have been handed over to them by tradition

i don't give any doctrine to my sannyasins any dogma, any cult, any creed -- i have none i only insist on one thing be aware, be alert in whatsoever you are doing just do it watchfully, consciously and that is enough

because consciously

one can never do anything wrong consciousness is bound to result in right actions and unconsciously one cannot do anything right 1/08/07

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one can try to do right

but the total result will always be wrong so there is no need to bother about your small acts it is better to come to the very source and that is awareness

discover it and live out of it and then your life

will be just a festival of lights friendliness is the highest peak of love sex is the lowest

love is just in the middle friendliness is the peak

in sex only two bodies meet in love two hearts

in friendliness two spirits the first is animal

the second is human

the third is divine

but the third can happen only through awareness in fact the whole transformation from sex to love from love to friendliness

happens through the ladder of awareness if you bring your awareness if you focus it on your sexuality you will start transcending sexuality awareness is always a transcendence no other effort is needed

just watching your sexuality just understanding it, observing it is enough

and you can see its animality you can see the biological bondage you can see that you are being used by nature for its own purposes -- and this very seeing takes you to a new altitude to love

love is not natural

hence animals don't know about it it is a transcendence of nature it is going a little above nature it is supranatural

but something of sex still remains in it as a hangover, as a shadow of the past if you watch your love

if you become aware of your love then the third thing happens friendliness

i don't call it even friendship because friendship reminds one of relationship love is a relationship

but friendliness is free of all kinds of bindings 1/08/07

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friendliness is just like fragrance absolutely free

to go with the wind, to rise towards the sky it has no confinement

love is a little bit possessive, jealous friendliness is beyond possessiveness beyond jealousy

one can be friendly to many people, to millions one can be friendly to the whole existence it is awareness

that brings you to that ultimate peak and once your sex is transformed into love and your love is transformed into friendliness you have come home

then one can relax

the journey is over

The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #21

Chapter title: None

21 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103215

ShortTitle: CLAPP21

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Tonight there is an Enlightenment Day Celebration in Bhagwan's silent presence. This chapter in the book comprises quotes on celebration and several photos.

rejoice! sing! dance!

and dance so totally that your egos melt and disappear

dance so totally

that the dancer is no more there but only the dance remains then you will din me wherever you are wherever my sannyasin celebrate my message is realized

because celebration is my message 1/08/07

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my sannyasins celebrate everything celebration is the only thing we can offer god

this i call prayer, this i call being religious celebrating one's being it is a gift from god just to be is more than you can ask for just to be is the greatest miracle hallelujah

hallelujah

hallelujah

we are made of the stuff called celebration rejoice, rejoice

i say unto you rejoice

again and again!

oh what wondrous life!

i rejoice in the waves of your love i rejoice in the starts above i rejoice in the rolling thunder of your song

we are on the threshold

of something new that is going to happen to humanity

we have to fill the whole earth with buddhafields!

so wherever you go

wherever you are,

never forget for a moment

that you are not far away from me The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #22

Chapter title: None

1/08/07

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22 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103225

ShortTitle: CLAPP22

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awareness is the seed and blissfulness is the flower and the whole pilgrimage

is between these two points awareness and blissfulness we are living in unawareness hence bliss cannot blossom in awareness bliss, in unawareness misery there are the natural by-products everybody wants to be blissful but just by wanting it you cannot attain it you will have to follow the right procedure you will have to follow the law of nature one has to begin with awareness and then bliss comes of its own accord you need not worry about it you need not even desire it, it comes inevitably but the whole work consists of becoming more aware

slowly slowly getting rid

of unawareness unalertness, unconsciousness it is possible, it has happened to many people it can happen to everyone

one just has to work a little one has to put a little energy into it it is almost ignored

and when people try to get the flowers without sowing the seeds

naturally they end up with plastic flowers and that is a very ugly and frustrating situation hence millions of people live a pseudo kind of life and when you live a pseudo kind of life you also die in a pseudo way you have never lived authentically you cannot die even authentically your whole life

has been artificial, plastic, synthetic but once you start working on awareness you are on the right track 1/08/07

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then go on moving deeper into it and one day suddenly, the blossoming suddenly one hears

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

and the music of it is tremendous and the beauty of it is indescribable and the poetry of it is wordless but it overwhelms its fragrance starts spreading to others too whosoever is available and open will be able to feel it the experience of bliss and the experience of light are simultaneous

in fact they are not two separate things they are two sides of the same coin the moment the flower of bliss opens in you suddenly you become aware

of immense light surrounding it a light which needs no fuel and because it needs no fuel it is eternal it cannot be exhausted

and to come to know the eternal life is another way of saying that one has realised god or one is liberated

liberated from darkness

liberated from the hell that darkness creates liberated from all the agony the anguish that is bound to be part of one's darkness, unconsciousness, unawareness one is not only liberated

from darkness and its by-products one is also liberated from one's own self, the ego the idea of i and it separate from existence liberation is not of the self liberation is from the self and the moment you are liberated from the self all the benediction of the whole existence is yours the first thing is to grow towards bliss wisdom does not come by knowledge it comes through blissfulness it has nothing to do with the mind it has nothing to do even with the heart it has something to do

1/08/07

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with the innermost core of your being the centre of your existence there are three concentric circles around your centre

the first is body

the body has its own kind of knowledge it is inbuilt, you are born with it it is already programmed in your very life cells you are not needed in it

it goes on working on its own from the cradle to the grave it is a long journey, but the body goes on working it is doing a thousand and one things it is a miracle

in such a small space

the body is doing so much work that if we want to do all these things we would need a vast factory covering hundreds of acres and it is doing it so noiselessly you become aware only when you are ill when something goes wrong

otherwise everything goes smoothly that is the wisdom of the body, it is biological then there is the mind, the second concentric circle it lives on borrowed knowledge the body lives with a natural, biological programme and the mind lives with social programming and that's what the schools, colleges and universities are for: to programme your mind so that you can be servile to the society a good servant, a civil servant efficient, usable, a commodity, a machine then there is the third concentric circle of the heart

it has its own way of knowing the poet, the musician, the painter, the dancer they live from that point; they don't think logically hence they don't use the mind they use feelings not thoughts they use love not logic

hence the philosopher can never agree with the poet one of the greatest greek philosophers, plato has visualised his utopia -- he calls it the republic in the republic he does not debar thieves prostitutes, gamblers, drunkards -- no but he debars only one kind of people, the poets the poets will not be allowed to live in his republic 1/08/07

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for the simple reason that they are illogical people he cannot trust love

he trusts logic, calculation, mathematics these are the three places where people are hanging somewhere a few live in the body and follow its programme they are almost like animals a few live in the mind

they follow the social programme they are prisoners of the society a particular society in which they are born a few live in the heart

they are better than the first two but they are also dominated by something they don't know what it is they are possessed people

they do things but it is very unconscious even sometimes they rise to very beautiful heights but the whole rise is unconscious hence they have to fall again and again the poet only once in a while has a glimpse and then again he is back

into his dark night of the soul the real wisdom happens only when you have transcended all three and you have entered your innermost shrine it is absolute silence

it is non-physical

it is non-mental

it is beyond the heart

it is not action, not thought, not feeling it is just pure silence, virgin silence and with this virgin silence both things explode first blissfulness

and following it comes wisdom a great insight into things a tremendous perception

into the mystery of existence that is revelation, revelation of the divine of the godly, of the ultimate a man without bliss

is a tree without flowers

a sky without stars

a man without bliss lives somehow carrying a great load of meaningless things he drags, he cannot dance; he has nothing to dance 1/08/07

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he has not experienced any splendour any joy, any meaning

only the person who comes to know bliss comes to know the splendour the immense splendour of existence then life is lived as a dance, then there is beauty then one is not an outsider, one becomes an insider a partner in the great play of existence then one is part of the flowers and the clouds and the mountains and the stars then one is not alienated

but this can happen only through blissfulness and bliss happens through meditation this is the whole science

meditation means silence

and silence brings bliss

and bliss releases the hidden splendour in you and the moment you have seen your splendour you become capable of seeing the splendour of the whole then life is a sheer celebration each moment of it is an eternity of joy failure comes or success, it makes no difference neither does failure bring misery nor does success bring any excitement one remains calm and cool

one can see the enemy and the friend in the same way

because one knows

that the enemy can become the friend the friend can become the enemy they are convertible

in fact the man who is enemy was a friend one day there is no way to make an enemy without making a friend first and if a friend can become an enemy the enemy can become a friend so they are not so separate as people think all dualities are complementaries they are not opposites

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love and hate are not contraries they belong to the same energy two extremes of the same energy, like hot and cold but measurable by the same thermometer that thermometer shows they are one energy it can measure both

blissfulness brings this insight this tranquillity, this equilibrium, this vision that there is nothing contradictory in existence that there are no opposites hence there is no need to be anxious, worried life and death mean the same and the moment life and death are the same your cool becomes undisturbed nothing can distract, nothing can disturb but this immense possibility opens up only with blissfulness, never before it a miserable person cannot think there is no question of seeing he cannot even think, he cannot even conceptualise that misery and bliss belong to the same spectrum it is impossible for him to think he only knows the bitter taste of misery he has not known bliss at all it is only by knowing the bliss that you suddenly realise that it is the same energy that was being felt as misery it is not a different energy then what has made it possible to become bliss?

there has been a bridge

and that bridge i call meditation meditation is the alchemy

of transforming the baser metal into gold scientists say that the ingredients of a coal piece are the same as the ingredients of a diamond they are not chemically different any piece of coal under a certain heat pressure will become diamond

just that heat pressure is needed that's why now there are false diamonds available the only way to judge a false diamond from the real diamond

is in a very strange way

the only way is: the false diamond has no flaws while the real diamond has a few flaws 1/08/07

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man has improved upon nature the same is true about misery and bliss about hate and love

about birth and death

it is the same energy

it just has to pass through the alchemy of meditation it has to pass through silence and silence functions as fire it burns all that is ugly, unnecessary and out comes the purest gold that purest gold can only be described as absolute coolness -- that is the flavour of sannyas the essential core of the existence is bliss existence is made of the stuff called bliss if we are not blissful

the simple reason is we have forgotten the way to our own essential core just forgotten -- it is there and we are searching everywhere, except within meditation changes this course meditation means

a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn from without to within

and the moment you face yourself you start laughing

laughing at the whole ridiculousness of your search you were searching for something that was already within you and the moment you know your own inner core and its blissfulness

the whole existence becomes blissful instantly it looks miserable because you are miserable it simply reflects you, it is a mirror, it echoes you if you are blissful the whole existence is blissful then all the trees join in dance with you and all the birds join in songs with you all the rainbows have your colours then the stars are not without, they are within too then the distinction between without and within disappears there comes a melting

one becomes an intrinsic part of the whole that is the ultimate goal

gautam the buddha has said that the taste of bliss is the taste of the purest sweetness 1/08/07

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misery is bitter, very bitter because it is part of your unconscious life it is as if a blind man is trying to find a way he stumbles, hurts himself breaks his leg or gets a fracture again starts groping

hits his head against a wall and there is no one to ask because all others are blind too they are constantly running into each other hitting each other

a few cunning ones start becoming political leaders gathering blind people

giving them beautiful names giving them a flag and a slogan and then gangs fight -- gangs of blind people christians, hindus, mohammedans or communists, fascists, socialists it may be politics or religion but the crowd consists of blind people and the leaders are far more blind than the followers only then can they lead

they are more perfectly blind just think of the polack pope or ayatollah khomaniac now he has brought the islamic revolution to iran thousands of people have been killed the whole country is being destroyed because of this maniac

he is not only blind but mad too but that is perfection

ayatollah khomaniac is a perfect man blindness plus madness is a rare combination once in a while it creates an adolf hitler, a mussolini joseph stalin, mao tse tung -- monsters not men in darkness, in blindness, nothing else is possible one has to attain to a little awareness awareness gives you insight, vision and the moment you have awareness you start tasting bliss and its sweetness life becomes a totally different phenomenon luminous, fragrant

bliss is the everest

there is nothing higher than that and unless you reach the everest of bliss you have not fulfilled your mission in life your destiny in life

hence one feels always as if something is missing one cannot pinpoint exactly what it is because how to pinpoint?

you have never known it

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but you can see the gap

you can see something empty inside you something is certainly missing you are not whole -- that much is certain and that which is missing keeps you in agony in despair, in depression, in a pessimistic attitude because you are unfulfilled because you have not blossomed you are missing your opportunity in life and death is coming closer every day so as death comes closer

one becomes more and more miserable don't be angry at old men: feel compassion for them because they have missed their life and that's why they are continuously irritated for small things they throw a tantrum the basic reason is something else they find any excuse

they go on trying to find faults with everybody the real thing is they know they have missed and even to recognise it is too painful, so they go on finding other excuses for their being miserable but the real thing is they are miserable because they could have been blissful but they never travelled to the peak, to the everest which was always possible

just a decisiveness was needed sannyas is a decision, a commitment not to me but to yourself

that from now onwards

you will put more and more energy towards becoming aware, blissful, silent because that is the only way you will be able to reach to the goal of your life and when it is reached

suddenly the whole jigsaw puzzle of life disappears all fits so perfectly

that one starts dancing

one has arrived home

bliss is a strange wine

strange, because on the one hand it makes you fully aware

and on the other hand it makes you fully intoxicated intoxicated with the divine fully aware in your being

but the moment you are fully aware in your being 1/08/07

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the divine wine starts showering on you and it is one of the most miraculous events when awareness becomes intoxicated it still remains aware

that is the mystery in it

it is absolute intoxication and absolute awareness and both are together, both are one hence the word mystic

the mystic is called a mystic because he lives the greatest mystery of life incalculable, immeasurable incomprehensible through the mind but mind is not all

mind is the most superficial thing it is good for the marketplace the marketplace is not a mystery it is good for mathematical calculations it is a good biocomputer

but it knows nothing of the mystery it cannot know by its very nature hence one has to drop out of the mind and to drop out of the mind is the only way to drop out of the stupidity of society by dropping out of the society you cannot drop out of the mind but by dropping out of the mind you naturally drop out of the society and all the great people of the world are drop-outs jesus, socrates, lao tzu, zarathustra, buddha all are drop-outs

but not drop-outs like hippies, real drop-outs dropping out of the mind

is only the superficial part of their dropping then they drop in

dropping out is only the first step then they drop in

and that dropping in brings bliss and bliss brings the mysterious, the miraculous awareness and intoxication both together blissfulness is our birthright we just have to claim it

and meditation is our claim meditation is simply preparing your home for the guest

the guest is already waiting on the door but your inner side is so cluttered 1/08/07

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that there is no space for the guest to come in and the guest is no ordinary guest it is the whole infinity

all the stars and the whole sky and the infinite universe

is waiting as a guest to come in so you will need immense space you will need bigger space than the whole universe only then the universe can be accommodated and meditation does that magic it throws out all rubbish, all junk and in fact it is all junk, it has no value at all it has not given you anything, it has been destructive it has been simply occupying the space for no reason at all

and because it is occupying the space nothing else can come in

the cup has to be emptied, totally emptied meditation is the process of emptying yourself slowly slowly throwing thoughts desires, memories, fantasies, out then feelings, moods

the moment you are totally a zero that very moment the guest comes in without even knocking on the door without even declaring that i am here may i come in -- that much time is not lost once you are empty

here you are empty and there the guest appears and that guest is blissfulness so we have to prepare only one thing an empty mind, a no-mind

that's what i call meditation: a no-mind and the no-mind is the purest state of our being it is virgin consciousness and only in a virgin consciousness is god possible The Sound of One Hand Clapping Chapter #23

Chapter title: None

23 March 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive code: 8103235

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ShortTitle: CLAPP23

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the bible begins with a very strange statement in the beginning was the word and god was with the word

and god was the word

this beginning of the bible has led the whole western mind in a wrong direction the word can never be the beginning because before the word can even exist he sound is needed

to transform the sound into the word a mind is needed

the word can never be the beginning the sound of running water is not a word

the sound of wind passing through the pine trees is not a word

word came much later on

word came with man, not with existence word is a mind product

it is giving meaning to sound sound is there, then comes the mind then mind interprets the sound and makes the word the word is a human creation if i was to write the bible again i would say in the beginning was

the Sound

of one hand

Clapping

a soundless sound, the sound of silence itself and i can say it authentically because if one goes within oneself one comes to the beginning of everything because you contain both

the beginning and the end, the seed and the flower first you have to drop the words 1/08/07

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the moment you drop the words the mind becomes useless

because its whole function is to interpret sounds into words to create words out of sound hence there are so many languages in the world thousands of languages

because the interpretation of a certain sound is our interpretation

we can make any interpretation out of it different people, different tribes, different races have all heard the same sounds but they all have interpreted differently once interpretation is dropped once you are no more interested in the words but you become interested in the sound the whole function of the mind is taken away the very earth below the mind is withdrawn the mind flowers

and the death of the mind

is the beginning of meditation then you are falling into sound first then as you go deeper into sound it becomes more and more silence of course that silence

has a certain rhythm and music to it but it is pure silence

no word, no mind, no interpretation and this is the beginning

and remember, this is also the end the source is always the goal only then is life complete it becomes a perfect circle when the source is reached again you have come home

the scriptures

have been dominating humanity for centuries rotten scriptures, out of date scriptures very primitive, juvenile, childish and one can understand why they are so because they were created by very primitive people those people were not yet aware of their own selves, of the vast universe of the centre of it all -- the consciousness those scriptures

are basically father and mother oriented that's enough proof that they were created by childish psychology

the child is dependent, helpless 1/08/07

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he knows he cannot survive without the father and the mother even though he becomes a grown-up this idea goes on like a hangover when he becomes independent then too he needs a father-figure that is the basic need of the helpless child and the hangover of a helpless childhood hence two kinds of religions and two kinds of scriptures are in existence the societies which were matriarchal have created god the mother more societies turned into patriarchal societies the woman was ignored, subjugated and man became dominant

hence the religions claim god as the father god is neither a he nor a she but an it in fact he is not a person at all but only a presence a presence that overwhelms the whole existence you are part of that presence but unless one drops these scriptures unless one really burns them inside one's being one cannot find true religion one remains immature, ungrown-up people only grow old, they don't grow up and my whole effort here is to help you to grow up to become mature, to become grounded, centred to know yourself, because that knowing becomes the key of knowing the whole but the walls of the scriptures hindus, christians, mohammedans, jews they have all created their walls those walls have to be completely demolished mercilessly demolished

unless we drop our hangovers of a primitive past we cannot live in the present, sincerely, totally and a sannyasin is to live totally, sincerely now, here

mind is capable of creating systems of thought but they are like making houses out of playing cards I just a little breeze and the whole house topples down and all the systems that mind creates are basically without any foundation so if you look into any system created by the mind and all systems are created by the mind all philosophies, all theologies, all ideologies if you go penetrating, digging deep you will be surprised -- the structure is vast 1/08/07

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you can be lost in the structure but if you look for the basic premises you will find they are missing there is no foundation at all their basic assumptions are only guesswork they begin with a priori ideas if you question their a priori ideas they are absolutely incapable of answering them hence no philosophy has satisfied man it satisfies only the person who creates it and deep down he also knows, he must know so he has to go on creating a bigger and bigger structure so vast, so complicated, so intricate that people are lost in theories and never come to the basic assumption hence every philosophy

has been criticised by its opponents and profoundly criticised

but they make the same mistake it is bound to be so

it is the mistake of the thinking process itself it is like a blind man thinking about light what can he do? from where will he begin?

he will begin with an a priori idea, a guess he has never experienced

and my emphasis here is experiential so i am not giving you any ideology, any religion any cult, any creed, any dogma i am destroying all these things my work consists ninety-nine point nine per cent in being destructive

when all that is nonsense in you is destroyed the sense that you have brought with your nature asserts itself

when all that has been forced upon you is taken away

then your spontaneity

then your natural being blossoms and that's what god is all about the blossoming of your spontaneity mind is very clever in conceptualising give it anything and it will turn it into a concept and once it has succeeded

in turning it into a concept it looks so logical -- only looks, remember it looks so rational -- but only looks remember again, it is not rational, it is not logical 1/08/07

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but it gives a beautiful facade of logic, reason and the people who are not acquainted with the ways of logic and reason fall victims to it

they become imprisoned in concepts they become christians, buddhists, hindus communists, atheists, theists, and what not this is not the way to search the truth the most fundamental thing about the search for truth is to withdraw all your concepts about it one should go utterly naked before the truth with no ideas about it

because your idea will disfigure, your idea will distort your idea will choose only that part of the truth which fits with it and it will deny that part which does not fit

and remember: a half-truth, a partial truth is more dangerous than an absolute lie for the simple reason that if the lie is absolute you are sooner or later bound to find it but if there is something which is a lie and yet carries some flavour of truth in it that truth may prevent you from finding that it is a lie that truth may give you enough consolation and you may cling, because of the truth to the lie

a man who wants to know the truth should go with open eyes

with no concepts, with no specs just naked, bare eyes -- to see what it is when you don t have any idea you don't project when you don't project you don't choose when you don't choose

the whole truth enters your being and jesus is right when he says truth liberates lies create bondages, truth liberates all the religions

have been contaminating humanity with beliefs they say unless you believe you will never know just the opposite is the truth if you believe you will never know because belief means without knowing you have already accepted a certain prejudice without enquiring into it, without making any effort to be acquainted with the truth you have already believed

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now there is no question of enquiry because enquiry arises only when there is doubt if you doubt you don't believe if you believe you cannot doubt all beliefs are superstructures to repress doubt but if doubt is repressed enquiry is destroyed and that's how people have been living imprisoned in churches, temples, mosques gurudwaras, synagogues

imprisoned in the bibles, the vedas the korans, the gitas

imprisoned in a thousand ways but the imprisonment is so subtle that unless one is really intelligent it is very difficult to find it but all these imprisonments are rooted in the single thing the belief

mv sannyasins have to learn not to believe but to enquire, to explore, to go on the journey the adventure of the unknown, empty-handed without any idea what it is going to be just innocent

in innocence the truth is known, not in belief the innocence becomes the door to the divine we are all full of prejudices for the simple reason that from the very beginning as the child is born the parents start poisoning him with their own beliefs

they are afraid that if he becomes mature enough to ask questions, to enquire then there is no way to transfer the beliefs that have been transferred to them for centuries they think it is a valuable treasure -- they only think they themselves have lived a life of misery they know their parents have lived a life of misery they know in fact that the whole humanity is living a life of hell, but still every parent has an ego-number in him their children should represent them they should be as miserable as they are if more, then that is better, some improvement they are afraid to leave their children in freedom hence they go on piling up prejudices the children have to be taken to the church they have to be baptised

they have to be given religious education and this all has to happen before their sexual maturity 1/08/07

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before the age of fourteen hence a strange fact has now become well-known that people's mental age

is somewhere between twelve and fourteen because that is the time

when they start becoming sexually mature now they cannot be conditioned any more sexual maturity means

nature has completed its process the person is individual as far as nature is concerned he may not be adult

according to the political ideas prevalent in a country

in some countries eighteen is the time when he is capable of voting in some countries, twenty-one but in fact nature has given him all the right to be a parent what to say about voting?

by the time a child is fourteen or thirteen the girls become mature one year earlier the child is capable of reproducing children what more responsibility can there be?

hence now no more conditioning is possible but whatsoever conditioning has happened has retarded his mind

now he will live

according to that conditioning for his whole life he will never grow beyond that mental age he may become eighty, ninety or he even may live for a century, but he will remain as far as psychology is concerned only somewhere between twelve and fourteen and this disparity

between the age of fourteen and the age of a hundred

is the root cause of all misery the body goes on growing

and the mind remains stuck and the gap becomes unbridgeable the mind should grow each moment with each breath

the learning should never stop -- it cannot stop it is life's most valuable phenomenon the learning should continue to the last breath a person should die learning, still learning learning about death

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life he has seen

he has learned so much through life he should not miss

this ultimate opportunity of learning this is the pinnacle of life death is not the end

it appears the end

only to those whose minds are retarded to socrates it is not the end -- another beginning to the buddha it is not the end but a tremendous beginning, a freedom freedom from the confinement of the body of the mind

death is opening a vaster dimension than one has ever known before but that needs intelligence that does not need a retarded mind it needs a constantly growing mind that's what i mean when i say transcend all prejudices

because those prejudices are holding you back life goes ahead

and you are holding somewhere back a part of you remains in the past a part of you has to live in the present only a partial life -- and a partial life is never fulfilled, it remains discontented drop all prejudices, drop all conditionings so that you are reborn

that's what sannyas is all about a rebirth the beginning of enquiry, the beginning of seeking the beginning of searching -- on your own the dropping of the borrowed knowledge and learning

so that you can have some insight of your own only your own insight is going to give you freedom, love, blessing, benediction contemplation has been proclaimed as the panacea it is not -- it is the best that the mind can do but whatsoever the mind can do is going to be a barrier

yes, contemplation is the finest work of art as far as mind is capable of it is as if it has created a very transparent glass wall around you 1/08/07

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you cannot see the wall

and you can see beyond the wall hence you can think that there is no wall you are free

you can see the flowers in the garden the birds on the wing, the sun rising, the starry night everything gives you the idea that you are free but if you take a few steps to reach the flowers then you will come to know that you are not free a very transparent glass wall prevents you contemplation is a glass wall the most beautiful that mind can do but as far as the soul is concerned it is the most dangerous thing because one can easily see a brick wall, a stone wall and when you see yourself behind a stone wall you don't like it, you want to get out of it you start finding methods how to destroy it but when you are living behind a glass wall then even the desire to get out rarely arises because it gives you a false sense of freedom one has to transcend contemplation these are the three things to be remembered one is concentration -- that is what creates science it deals with the objective reality it is a mind process

the second is contemplation -- it creates literature poetry, painting

the whole dimension of aesthetics it is beautiful

but it creates a new kind of bondage far more subtle

and the third thing is meditation meditation is not of the mind but going out of the mind

transcending the mind

the moment you transcend the mind you enter into the world of no-mind and that is the world of real freedom now you are no longer surrounded by prison walls the whole existence is yours and the joy that it contains and the beauty and the splendour and the ecstasy 1/08/07

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man is man only because he has a mind of course there are animals and trees and rocks which don't have this same type of mind as man has

hence mind has been praised, immensely praised from the schools to the college to the university we are cultivating mind -- to create human beings the more you are sophisticated in your mind the more powerful you will be in the human society you will become a scientist a physicist, a nuclear physicist you may become a politician you may become a great famous poet or a painter you will be powerful in some way your ego will be immensely satisfied but the satisfaction of the ego is not real contentment

to be famous means nothing when you are famous it means only something when you are not famous once you are famous you can see that it was all sheer nonsense what does it matter

how many people know about you?

two hundred or two million or two hundred million what does it matter? -- it is not true life name and fame don't stand as foundations for a real, authentic life which has joy in it which lives in a dance, in a song, in a celebration if you look backwards

man is really on the top of the ladder as far as animals are concerned but if you look upwards

there are still a few more rungs you have not yet come to the ultimate you are still on the way, on the bridge you have to transcend a few things more friedrich nietzsche

has a few immensely significant insights one of his insights is, he says that day will be the gloomiest in history when man will stop surpassing himself i absolutely agree with this man of course he was not a buddha not an awakened person

just at the last moment he went wrong 1/08/07

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one can go wrong at any moment in the journey even from the last rung of the ladder one can fall it is a game of snakes and ladders one can fall from the number ninety-nine because there is also one snake waiting for you nietzsche fell from the last point and became a madman

when you fall from such a height what else can you expect?

one is going to go berserk he died a madman

but he was very close to buddhahood that is the risk of all those people who want to reach to the highest peak if you want to reach the highest peak you have to be courageous

and you have to be careful and you have to know that the higher you rise the more cautious you become because the path becomes narrow and the height becomes bigger and if you slip just a single wrong step

and you will fall into the abyss but he had reached very close the only thing that was missing was meditation otherwise he would have blossomed as a buddha he had all the capacity

i agree with him

that unless man surpasses himself he remains stuck it is not the end of evolution, there is much more yet and that much more can only be lived by transcending the mind

because mind is what makes you a man no-mind will be what will make you a superman that was the idea of friedrich nietzsche he tried hard to be a superman but he was not aware that one thing very essential was missing meditation was missing

my sannyasins can reach to the highest top without any fear of falling because from the very beginning they have to be meditative from the very beginning

they have to learn the art of being a no-mind and that releases awareness by the time they reach to the heights they are so full of awareness there is no possibility of slipping or committing a mistake

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they can surpass humanity

and that is the greatest experience in life when you surpass the mind

and all that mind consists of when you suddenly start flying because there is no burden left mind is a weight that keeps you down that keeps you gravitating towards the earth the moment the paperweight is removed . . .

mind is just a paperweight and a very heavy paperweight you can call it the soulweight once it is removed the soul is free it is on its wings already and that is what ecstasy is to be on the wing in the infinite sky soaring towards the stars

the society consists of many things of religion, of nationality, of race of blood, of colour -- and all that crap and everybody is drowning in the crap and if you try to get out of it the others who are drowning become very angry they start pulling you back, they won't allow you a politician had gone for a morning walk and he saw a small boy catching crabs and putting them into an open bucket and many of them were trying to get out the politician looked and he said, my son you are making so much effort to catch these people

but they will get out

why don't you cover up your bucket?

the boy said, you don't be worried, sir they are all politicians

when one starts getting out others pull him down, no cover is needed i am perfectly experienced with these politicians the society is a political unit if you want to get out of it first they will pull you in every possible way they will threaten you

they will call you all kinds of names dropouts, escapists

and i don't think there is anything wrong 1/08/07

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if you are dropping out of a pit full of crap there is nothing wrong in escaping from it any intelligent person will do that only fools can live in it, only utterly stupid a sannyasin has to live his life intelligently not being a part of the crowd psychology the mobocracy

he has to be an individual he has to be a rebel

he has to assert himself

he has to deny all efforts of being manipulated he has to cut himself off from all kinds of slaveries only then there is a possibility of seeing the light only then there is a possibility of realising your potential only then will you enter into the kingdom of god which is within you

the only anxiety in man's life is that of death other anxieties are just shadows of it by-products of it

howsoever far removed from it but if you go seeking and searching for the root cause

you will always see death

people are afraid of losing money for the simple reason that they know that if money is there, there is some safety against death, illness, disease, old age people cling to the family for the simple reason that who is going to take care of me if i am old disease is there, i become crippled, paralysed then who is going to take care of me?

so it is better to suffer in the family rather than becoming free of it people live in all kinds of societies and sacrifice all kinds of things which are of immense value, for the simple reason that the society provides security, safety but deep down it is always death that is the source from where anxiety arises and the only way to go beyond anxiety is to know that your innermost core is deathless even if you want to die you cannot die the people who commit suicide only destroy their body

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not their souls

they cannot, it is indestructible and this is the most precious gift that comes through meditation you become aware of something eternal in you which was there before your birth which will be there even after your death your body is part of the earth it will dissolve into the earth something will go to the water something will go to the fire something will go to the earth something will go to the air something will go to the sky all the constituents of the body will be dispersed back to their original sources and mind will simply evaporate it is a by-product of all the body constituents once they disintegrate the mind disintegrates mind is not an entity hence mind is going to die and we are too much attached with the mind so we live under the fear of death meditation means

becoming detached from the mind becoming a witness of the mind looking at the mind as separate from you that's what actually it is you can see thoughts passing by you can see desires passing by you can see the whole traffic that goes on in the mind

the memories, the fantasies, the past, the future all kinds of things are passing you can just stand by the side of the road and you can see the whole traffic -- you are not it you are the watcher, you are the witness and the witness is beyond

the seer is never the seen the observer is never the observed this very experience is transcendence and once you know that you are not the mind the fear of death simply disappears as if it has never been there in the first place suddenly you are in the world 1/08/07

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of the deathless, the eternal there is no anxiety any more one is at ease with existence in a deep let-go

a tremendous relaxation

that relaxation is the ultimate goal of sannyas to know it is to know all

to miss it is to miss all

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