Book of Secrets-Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Path of Yoga and the Path of Tantra

Many questions are there.

The first:

Question 1

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRADITIONAL YOGA AND TANTRA?

ARE THEY THE SAME?

Tantra and yoga are basically different. They reach to the same goal; however, their paths

are not only different, but contrary also. So this has to be understood very clearly.

The yoga process is also methodology; yoga is also technique. Yoga is not philosophy,

just like tantra -- yoga depends on action, method, technique. Doing leads to being in

yoga also, but the process is different. In yoga one has to fight; it is the path of the

warrior. On the path of tantra one does not have to fight at all. Rather, on the contrary,

one has to indulge -- but with awareness.

Yoga is suppression with awareness; tantra is indulgence with awareness. Tantra says

that whatsoever you are, the ultimate is not opposite to it. It is a growth; you can grow to

be the ultimate. There is no opposition between you and the reality. You are part of it, so

no struggle, no conflict, no opposition to nature is needed. You have to use nature; you

have to use whatsoever you are to go beyond.

In yoga you have to fight with yourself to go beyond. In yoga, the world and MOKSHA,

liberation -- you as you are and you as you can be -- are two opposite things. Suppress,

fight, dissolve that which you are so that you can attain that which you can be.

Going beyond is a death in yoga. You must die for your real being to be born.

In the eyes of tantra, yoga is a deep suicide. You must kill your natural self -- your body,

your instincts, your desires, everything. Tantra says accept yourself as you are. It is a

deep acceptance. Do not create a gap between you and the real, between the world and

NIRVANA. Do not create any gap. There is no gap for tantra; no death is needed. For

your rebirth, no death is needed -- rather, a transcendence. For this transcendence, use

yourself.

For example, sex is there, the basic energy -- the basic energy you are born through, born

with. The basic cells of your being and of your body are sexual, so the human mind

revolves around sex. For yoga you must fight with this energy. Through fight you create

a different center in yourself. The more you fight, the more you become integrated in a

different center. Then sex is not your center. Fighting with sex -- of course, consciously

-- will create in you a new center of being, a new emphasis, a new crystallization. Then

sex will not be your energy. You will create your energy fighting with sex. A different

energy will come into being and a different center of existence.

For tantra you have to use the energy of sex. Do not fight with it, transform it. Do not

think in terms of enmity, be friendly to it. It is your energy. It is not evil, it is not bad.

Every energy is just natural. It can be used for you, it can be used against you. You can

make a block of it, a barrier, or you can make it a step. It can be used. Rightly used, it

becomes friendly; wrongly used, it becomes your enemy. But it is neither. Energy is just

natural. As ordinary man is using sex, it becomes an enemy, it destroys him; he simply

dissipates in it.

Yoga takes the opposite view -- opposite to the ordinary mind. The ordinary mind is

being destroyed by its own desires, so yoga says stop desiring, be desireless. Fight desire

and create an integration in you which is desireless.

Tantra says be aware of the desire; do not create any fight. Move in desire with full

consciousness, and when you move into desire with full consciousness you transcend it.

You are into it and still you are not in it. You pass through it, but you remain an outsider.

Yoga appeals much because yoga is just the opposite of the ordinary mind, so the

ordinary mind can understand the language of yoga. You know how sex is destroying you

-- how it has destroyed you, how you go on revolving around it like a slave, like a

puppet. You know this by your experience. So when yoga says fight it, you immediately

understand the language. That is the appeal, the easy appeal of yoga.

Tantra can not be so easily appealing. It seems difficult: how to move into desire without

being overwhelmed by it? How to be in the sex act consciously, with full awareness? The

ordinary mind becomes afraid.

It seems dangerous. Not that it is dangerous; whatsoever you know about sex creates this

danger for you. You know yourself, you know how you can deceive yourself. You know

very well that your mind is cunning. You can move in desire, in sex, in everything, and

you can deceive yourself that you are moving with full awareness. That is why you feel

the danger.

The danger is not in tantra; it is in you. And the appeal of yoga is because of you,

because of your ordinary mind, your sex-suppressed, sex-starved, sex-indulging mind.

Because the ordinary mind is not healthy about sex, yoga has an appeal. With a better

humanity, with a healthy sex -- natural, normal -- the case would be different. We are not

normal and natural. We are absolutely abnormal, unhealthy, really insane. But because

everyone is like us, we never feel it.

Madness is so normal that not to be mad may look abnormal. A Buddha is abnormal, a

Jesus is abnormal amidst us. They do not belong to us. This "normalcy" is a disease. This

"normal" mind has created the appeal of yoga. If you take sex naturally -- with no

philosophy around it, with no philosophy for or against -- if you take sex as you take your

hands, your eyes; if it is totally accepted as a natural thing, then tantra will have an

appeal. And only then can tantra be useful for many.

But the days of tantra are coming. Sooner or later tantra will explode for the first time in

the masses, because for the first time the time is ripe -- ripe to take sex naturally.

It is possible that the explosion may come from the West, because Freud, Jung, Reich,

they have prepared the background. They did not know anything about tantra, but they

have made the basic ground for tantra to evolve. Western psychology has come to a

conclusion that the basic human disease is somewhere around sex, the basic insanity of

man is sex-oriented.

So unless this sex orientation is dissolved, man cannot be natural, normal. Man has gone

wrong only because of his attitudes about sex. No attitude is needed. Only then are you

natural. What attitude have you about your eyes? Are they evil or are they divine? Are

you for your eyes or against them? There is no attitude! That is why your eyes are

normal.

Take some attitude -- think that eyes are evil. Then seeing will become difficult. Then

seeing will take the same problematic shape that sex has taken. Then you will want to

see, you will desire and you will hanker to see. But when you see you will feel guilty.

Whenever you see you will feel guilty that you have done something wrong, that you

have sinned. You would like to kill your very instrument of seeing; you would like to

destroy your eyes. And the more you want to destroy them, the more you will become

eye centered. Then you will start a very absurd activity. You will want to see more and

more, and simultaneously you will feel more and more guilty. The same has happened

with the sex center.

Tantra says, accept whatsoever you are. This is the basic note -- total acceptance. And

only through total acceptance can you grow. Then use every energy you have. How can

you use them? Accept them, then find out what these energies are -- what is sex, what is

this phenomenon. We are not acquainted with it. We know many things about sex, taught

by others. We may have passed through the sex act, but with a guilty mind, with a

suppressive attitude, in haste, in a hurry. Something has to be done in order to become

unburdened. The sex act is not a loving act. You are not happy in it, but you cannot leave

it. The more you try to leave it, the more attractive it becomes. The more you want to

negate it, the more you feel invited.

You cannot negate it, but this attitude to negate, to destroy, destroys the very mind, the

very awareness, the very sensitivity which can understand it. So sex goes on with no

sensitivity into it. Then you cannot understand it. Only a deep sensitivity can understand

anything; only a deep feeling, a deep moving into it, can understand anything. You can

understand sex only if you move in it as a poet moves amidst flowers -- only then! If you

feel guilty about flowers, you may pass through the garden, but you will pass with closed

eyes. And you will be in a hurry, in a deep, mad haste. Somehow you have to go out of

the garden. Then how can you be aware?

So tantra says, accept whatsoever you are.

You are a great mystery of many multidimensional energies. Accept it, and move with

every energy with deep sensitivity, with awareness, with love, with understanding. Move

with it! Then every desire becomes a vehicle to go beyond it. Then every energy becomes

a help. And then this very world is nirvana, this very body is a temple -- a holy temple, a

holy place.

Yoga is negation; tantra is affirmation. Yoga thinks in terms of duality -- that is the

reason for the word `yoga'. It means to put two things together, to `yoke' two things

together. But two things are there; the duality is there. Tantra says there is no duality. If

there is duality, then you cannot put them together. And howsoever you try they will

remain two. Howsoever put together they will remain two, and the fight will continue, the

dualism will remain.

If the world and the divine are two, then they cannot be put together. If really they are not

two, if they are only appearing as two, only then can they be one. If your body and your

soul are two, then they cannot be put together. If you and God are two, then there is no

possibility of putting them together. They will remain two.

Tantra says there is no duality; it is only an appearance. So why help appearance to grow

stronger? Tantra asks, why help this appearance of duality to grow stronger? Dissolve it

this very moment! Be one! Through acceptance you become one, not through fight.

Accept the world, accept the body, accept everything that is inherent in it. Do not create a

different center in yourself, because for tantra that different center is nothing but the ego.

Do not create an ego. Just be aware of what you are. If you fight, then the ego will be

there.

So it is difficult to find a yogi who is not an egoist. And yogis may go on talking about

egolessness, but they cannot be egoless. The very process they go through creates the

ego. The fight is the process. If you fight, you are bound to create an ego. And the more

you fight, the more strengthened the ego will be. And if you win your fight, then you will

achieve the supreme ego.

Tantra says, no fight! Then there is no possibility of the ego. If we understand tantra there

will be many problems, because for us, if there is no fight there is only indulgence. No

fight means indulgence for us. Then we become afraid. We have indulged for lives

together and we have reached nowhere. But for tantra indulgence is not "our" indulgence.

Tantra says indulge, but be aware.

You are angry... tantra will not say do not be angry. Tantra will say be angry

wholeheartedly, but be aware. Tantra is not against anger, tantra is only against spiritual

sleepiness, spiritual unconsciousness. Be aware AND be angry. And this is the secret of

the method -- that if you are aware anger is transformed: it becomes compassion.

So tantra says anger is not your enemy; it is compassion in seed form. The same anger,

the same energy, will become compassion.

If you fight with it, then there will be no possibility for compassion. So if you succeed in

fighting, in suppression, you will be a dead man. There will be no anger because you

have suppressed it, but there will be no compassion either because only anger can be

transformed into compassion. If you succeed in your suppression -- which is impossible

-- then there will be no sex, but no love either, because with sex dead there is no energy

to grow into love. So you will be without sex, but you will also be without love. And then

the whole point is missed, because without love there is no divineness, without love there

is no liberation, and without love there is no freedom.

Tantra says that these same energies are to be transformed. It can be said in this way: if

you are against the world, then there is no nirvana -- because this world itself is to be

transformed into nirvana. Then you are against the basic energies which are the source.

So tantric alchemy says, do not fight, be friendly with all the energies that are given to

you. Welcome them. Feel grateful that you have anger, that you have sex, that you have

greed. Feel grateful because these are the hidden sources, and they can be transformed,

they can be opened. And when sex is transformed it becomes love.

The poison is lost, the ugliness is lost.

The seed is ugly, but when it becomes alive it sprouts and flowers. Then there is beauty.

Do not throw away the seed, because then you are also throwing the flowers in it. They

are not there yet, not yet manifest so that you can see them. They are unmanifest, but they

are there. Use this seed so that you can attain to flowers. So first let there be acceptance,

a sensitive understanding and awareness. Then indulgence is allowed.

One thing more which is really very strange, but one of the deepest discoveries of tantra,

and that is: whatsoever you take as your enemies -- greed, anger, hate, sex, whatsoever --

your attitude that they are enemies makes them your enemies. Take them as divine gifts

and approach them with a very grateful heart. For example, tantra has developed many

techniques for the transformation of sexual energy. Approach the sex act as if you are

approaching the temple of the divine. Approach the sex act as if it is prayer, as if it is

meditation. Feel the holiness of it.

That is why in Khajuraho, in Puri, in Konark, every temple has MAITHUN, intercourse

sculptures. The sex act on the walls of temples seems illogical, particularly for

Christianity, for Islam, for Jainism. It seems inconceivable, contradictory. How is the

temple connected with maithun pictures? On the outer walls of the Khajuraho temples,

every conceivable type of sex act is pictured in stone.

Why? In a temple it doesn't have any place, in our minds at least. Christianity cannot

conceive of a church wall with Khajuraho pictures. Impossible!

Modern Hindus also feel guilty because the minds of modern Hindus are created by

Christianity. They are "Hindu-Christians" -- and they are worse, because to be a Christian

is good, but to be a Hindu-Christian is just weird. They feel guilty. One Hindu leader,

Purshottamdas Tandon, even proposed that these temples should be destroyed, that they

do not belong to us. Really, it looks like they do not belong to us because tantra has not

been in our hearts for a long time, for centuries. It has not been the main current. Yoga

has been the main current, and for yoga Khajuraho is inconceivable -- it must be

destroyed.

Tantra says, approach the sex act as if you are entering a holy temple. That is why they

have pictured the sex act on their holy temples. They have said, approach sex as if you

are entering a holy temple. Thus, when you enter a holy temple sex must be there in order

that the two become conjoined in your mind, associated. Then you can feel that the world

and the divine are not two fighting elements, but one. They are not contradictory, they are

just polar opposites helping each other. And they can exist only because of this polarity.

If this polarity is lost, the whole world is lost. So see the deep oneness running through

everything.

Do not see only the polar opposites, see the inner running current which makes them one.

For tantra everything is holy. Remember this, for tantra EVERYTHING is holy; nothing

is unholy. Look at it this way: for an irreligious person, everything is unholy; for socalled

religious persons something is holy, something is unholy.

For tantra, everything is holy.

One Christian missionary was with me a few days ago and he said, "God created the

world." So I asked him, "Who created sin?" He said, "The devil."

Then I asked him, "Who created the devil?" Then he was at a loss. He said, "Of course,

God created the devil."

The devil creates sin and God creates the devil. Then who is the real sinner -- the devil or

God? But the dualist conception always leads to such absurdities. For tantra God and the

devil are not two. Really, for tantra there is nothing that can be called "devil", everything

is divine, everything is holy. And this seems to be the right standpoint, the deepest. If

anything is unholy in this world, from where does it come and how can it be?

So only two alternatives are there. First, the alternative of the atheist who says everything

is unholy. This attitude is okay. He is also a non-dualist; he sees no holiness in the world.

Then there is the tantric's alternative -- he says everything is holy. He is also a nondualist.

But between these two are the so-called religious persons, who are not really

religious.

They are neither religious nor irreligious because they are always in a conflict. Their

whole theology is just to make ends meet, and those ends cannot meet.

If a single cell, a single atom in this world is unholy, then the whole world becomes

unholy, because how can that single atom exist in a holy world? How can it be? It is

supported by everything; to be, it has to be supported by everything. And if the unholy

element is supported by all the holy elements, then what is the difference between them?

So either the world is holy totally, unconditionally, or it is unholy; there is no middle

path.

Tantra says everything is holy, that is why we cannot understand it. It is the deepest nondual

standpoint -- if we can call it a standpoint. It is not, because any standpoint is bound

to be dual. It is not against anything, so it is not any standpoint. It is a felt unity, a lived

unity.

These are two paths, yoga and tantra. Tantra could not be so appealing because of our

crippled minds. But whenever there is someone who is healthy inside, not a chaos, tantra

has a beauty. Only he can understand what tantra is. Yoga has appeal, an easy appeal,

because of our disturbed minds.

Remember, it is ultimately your mind which makes anything attractive or unattractive. It

is you who is the deciding factor.

These approaches are different. I am not saying that one cannot reach through yoga.

One can reach through yoga also, but not through the yoga which is prevalent. The yoga

which is prevalent is not really yoga, but the interpretation of your diseased minds. Yoga

can be authentically an approach toward the ultimate, but that too is only possible when

your mind is healthy, when your mind is not diseased and ill. Then yoga takes a different

shape.

For example, Mahavir was on the path of yoga, but he was not really suppressing sex. He

had known it, he had lived it, he was deeply acquainted with it. But it became useless to

him, so it dropped. Buddha was on the path of yoga, but he had lived through the world,

he was deeply acquainted with it. He was not fighting.

Once you know something you become free from it. It simply drops like dead leaves

dropping from a tree. It is not renunciation; there is no fight involved at all. Look at

Buddha's face -- it doesn't look like the face of a fighter. He has not been fighting. He is

so relaxed; his face is the very symbol of relaxation... no fight.

Look at your yogis. The fight is apparent on their faces. Deep down much turmoil is there

-- right now they are sitting on volcanos. You can look in their eyes, in their faces, and

you will feel it. Deep down somewhere they have suppressed all their diseases; they have

not gone beyond.

In a healthy world, where everyone is living his life authentically, individually, not

imitating others but living his own life in his own way, both are possible.

He may learn the deep sensitivity which transcends desires; he may come to a point

where all desires become futile and drop. Yoga can also lead to this, but to me yoga will

lead to it in the same world where tantra can lead to it -- remember this. We need a

healthy mind, a natural man. In that world where a natural man is, tantra, and yoga also,

will lead to transcendence of desires.

In our so-called ill society, neither yoga nor tantra can do this, because if we choose yoga

we do not choose it because desires have become useless -- no! They are still meaningful;

they are not dropping by themselves. We have to force them. If we choose yoga, we

choose it as a technique of suppression. If we choose tantra, we choose tantra as a

cunningness, as a deep deception -- an excuse to indulge.

So with an unhealthy mind neither yoga nor tantra can work. They will both lead to

deceptions. A healthy mind, particularly a sexually healthy mind, is needed to start with.

Then it is not very difficult to choose your path. You can choose yoga, you can choose

tantra.

There are two types of persons basically, male and female. I do not mean biologically,

but psychologically. For those who are psychologically basically male -- aggressive,

violent, extrovert -- yoga is their path. For those who are basically feminine, receptive,

passive, non-violent, tantra is their path. So you may note it: for tantra, Mother Kali,

Tara, and so many DEVIS, BHAIRAVIS -- female deities -- are very significant.

In yoga you will never hear mentioned any name of a feminine deity. Tantra has feminine

deities; yoga has male gods. Yoga is outgoing energy; tantra is energy moving inwards.

So you can say in modern psychological terms that yoga is extrovert and tantra is

introvert. So it depends on the personality. If you have an introverted personality, then

fight is not for you. If you have an extroverted personality, then fight is for you.

But we are just confused, we are just in a mess; that is why nothing helps. On the

contrary, everything disturbs. Yoga will disturb you, tantra will disturb you. Every

medicine is going to create a new illness for you because the chooser is ill, diseased; so

the result of his choice will be illness. So I do not mean that through yoga you cannot

reach. I emphasize tantra only because we are going to try to understand what tantra is.

Another question:

Question 2

ON THE PATH OF SURRENDER, HOW DOES THE SEEKER COME TO THE

RIGHT TECHNIQUE OUT OF ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE METHODS?

On the path of will there are methods -- these one hundred and twelve methods. On the

path of surrender, surrender itself is the method, there are no other methods -- remember

this. All methods are non-surrendering, because a method means depending on yourself.

You can do something; the technique is there, so you do it. On the path of surrender, you

are no more, so you cannot do anything.

You have done the ultimate, the last: you have surrendered. On the path of surrender,

surrender is the only method.

All these one hundred and twelve methods require a certain will; they require something

to be done by you. You manipulate your energy, you balance your energy, you create a

center in your chaos. You do something. Your effort is significant, basic, required. On the

path of surrender only one thing is required -- you surrender. We will go deep into these

one hundred and twelve methods, so it is good to say something about surrender because

it has no method.

In these one hundred and twelve methods there will be nothing about surrender. Why has

Shiva not said anything about surrender? Because nothing can be said. Bhairavi herself,

Devi herself, has reached Shiva not through any method. She has simply surrendered. So

this must be noted. She is asking these questions not for herself, these questions are asked

for the whole humanity. She has attained Shiva. She is already in his lap; she is already

embraced by him. She has become one with him, but still she is asking.

So remember one thing, she is not asking for herself; there is no need. She is asking for

the whole humanity. But if she has attained, why is she asking Shiva? Can she herself not

speak to the humanity? She has come through the path of surrender, so she doesn't know

anything about method.

She herself has come through love; love is enough unto itself. Love doesn't need anything

more. She has come through love, so she doesn't know anything about any methods,

techniques. That is why she is asking.

So Shiva relates one hundred and twelve methods. He also will not talk about surrender

because surrender is not a method really. You surrender only when every method has

become futile, when you cannot reach by any method. You have tried your best. You

have knocked on every door and no door opens, and you have passed through all the

routes and no route reaches. You have done whatsoever you can do, and now you feel

helpless. In that total helplessness surrender happens. So on the path of surrender there is

no method.

But what is surrender and how does it work? And if surrender works, then what is the

need of one hundred and twelve methods? Then why go into them unnecessarily? -- the

mind will ask. Then okay! If surrender works, it is better to surrender. Why go on

hankering after methods? And who knows whether a particular method will suit you or

not? And it may take lives to find out. So it is good to surrender, but it is difficult. It is

the most difficult thing in the world.

Methods are not difficult. They are easy; you can train yourself. But for surrender you

cannot train yourself... no training! You cannot ask how to surrender; the very question is

absurd.

How can you ask how to surrender? Can you ask how to love?

Either there is love or there is not, but you cannot ask how to love. And if someone tells

you and teaches you how to love, remember, then you will never be capable of love.

Once a technique is given to you for love, you will cling to the technique. That is why

actors cannot love. They know so many techniques, so many methods -- and we are all

actors. Once you know the trick how to love, then love will not flower because you can

create a facade, a deception. And with the deception you are out of it, not involved. You

are protected.

Love is being totally open, vulnerable. It is dangerous. You become insecure. We cannot

ask how to love, we cannot ask how to surrender. It happens! Love happens, surrender

happens. Love and surrender are deeply one. But what is it? And if we cannot know how

to surrender, at least we can know how we are maintaining ourselves from surrendering,

how we are preventing ourselves from surrendering. That can be known and that is

helpful.

How is it that you have not surrendered yet? What is your technique of non-surrendering?

If you have not fallen in love yet, then the real problem is not how to love. The real

problem is to dig deep to find out how you have lived without love, what is your trick,

what is your technique, what is your structure -- your defense structure, how you have

lived without love.

That can be understood, and that should be understood.

First thing: we live with the ego, in the ego, centered in the ego. I am without knowing

who I am. I go on announcing, "I am." This "I-am-ness" is false, because I do not know

who I am. And unless I know who I am, how can I say "I"? This "I" is a false "I". This

false "I" is the ego. This is the defense. This protects you from surrendering.

You cannot surrender, but you can become aware of this defense measure. If you have

become aware of it, it dissolves. By and by, you are not strengthening it, and one day you

come to feel, "I am not." The moment you come to feel "I am not," surrender happens. So

try to find out whether you are. Really, is there any center in you that you can call your

"I"?. Go deep down within yourself, go on trying to find out where is this "I", where is

the abode of this ego.

Rinzai went to his master and he said, "Give me freedom!" The master said, "Bring

yourself. If you are, I will make you free. But if you are not, then how can I make you

free? You are already free. And freedom," his master said, "is not your freedom. Really,

freedom is freedom from `you'. So go and find out where this `I' is, where you are, then

come to me. This is the meditation. Go and meditate."

So the disciple Rinzai goes and meditates for weeks, months, and then he comes. Then he

says, "I am not the body.

Only this much I have found." So the master says, "This much you have become free. Go

again. Try to find out." Then he tries, meditates, and he finds that "I am not my mind,

because I can observe my thoughts. So the observer is different from the observed -- I am

not my mind." He comes and says, "I am not my mind." So his master says, "Now you

are three-fourths liberated. Now go again and find out who you are."

So he was thinking, "I am not my body. I am not my mind." He had read, studied, he was

well informed, so he was thinking, "I am not my body, not my mind, so I must be my

soul, my ATMA." But he meditated, and then he found that there is no atman, no soul,

because this atma is nothing but your mental information -- just doctrines, words,

philosophies.

So he came running one day and he said, "Now I am no more!" Then his master said,

"Am I now to teach you the methods for freedom?" Rinzai said, "I am free because I am

no more. There is no one to be in bondage. I am just a wide emptiness, a nothingness."

Only nothingness can be free. If you are something, you will be in bondage. If you are,

you will be in bondage. Only a void, a vacant space, can be free. Then you cannot bind it.

Rinzai came running and said, "I am no more. Nowhere am I to be found." This is

freedom. And for the first time he touched his master's feet -- for the first time! Not

actually, because he had touched them many times before also.

But the master said, "For the first time you have touched my feet."

Rinzai asked, "Why do you say for the first time? I have touched your feet many times."

The master said, "But you were there, so how could you touch my feet while you were

already there? While you are there how can you touch my feet?" The "I" can never touch

anybody's feet. Even though it apparently looks like it touches somebody's feet, it is

touching its own feet, just in a round-about way. "You have touched my feet for the first

time," the master said, "because now you are no more. And this is also the last time," the

master said. "The first and the last."

Surrender happens when you are not, so YOU cannot surrender. That is why surrender

cannot be a technique. You cannot surrender -- you are the hindrance. When you are not,

surrender is there. So you and surrender cannot cohabit, there is no coexistence between

you and surrender. Either you are or surrender is. So find out where you are, who you

are. This inquiry creates many, many surprising results.

Raman Maharshi used to say, "Inquire `Who am I ?'" It was misunderstood. Even his

nearest disciples have not understood the meaning of it. They think that this is an inquiry

to find out really "Who am I?" It is not! if you go on inquiring "Who am I?" you are

bound to come to the conclusion that you are not. This is not really an inquiry to find out

"Who am I?" Really, this is an inquiry to dissolve.

I have given many this technique, to inquire within "Who am I?" Then a month or two

months later, they will come to me and say, "I have still not found `Who am I?' The

question is still the same; there is no answer."

So I tell them, "Continue. Someday the answer will come." And they hope that the

answer will come. There is going to be no answer. It is only that the question will

dissolve. There is not going to be an answer, that "You are this." Only the question will

dissolve. There will be no one to ask even "Who am I?" And then you know.

When the "I" is not, the real "I" opens. When the ego is not, you are for the first time

encountering your being. That being is void. Then you can surrender; then you have

surrendered. You are surrender now. So there can be no techniques, or only negative

techniques like this inquiry into "Who am I?"

How does surrender work? If you surrender, what happens? We will come to understand

how methods work. We will go deep into methods, and we will come to know how they

work. They have a scientific basis of working.

When you surrender you become a valley; when you are an ego you are like a peak. Ego

means you are above everyone else, you are somebody. The others may recognize you,

may not recognize you -- that is another thing. You recognize that you are above

everyone. You are like a peak; nothing can enter you.

When one surrenders, one becomes like a valley. One becomes depth, not height. Then

the whole existence begins to pour into him from everywhere. He is just a vacuum, just a

depth, an abyss, bottomless. The whole existence begins to pour from everywhere. You

can say God runs from everywhere to him, enters him from every pore, fills him totally.

This surrender, this becoming a valley, an abyss, can be felt in many ways. There are

minor surrenders; there are major surrenders. Even in minor surrenders you feel it.

Surrendering to a master is a minor surrender, but you begin to feel it because the master

begins to flow into you immediately. If you surrender to a master, suddenly you feel his

energy flowing into you. If you cannot feel energy flowing into you, then know well you

have not surrendered even in a minor way.

There are so many stories which have become meaningless for us because we do not

know how they happened. Mahakashyap came to Buddha, and Buddha just touched his

head with his hand, and the thing happened. And Mahakashyap began to dance. So

Ananda asked Buddha, "What has happened to him? And I have been for forty years with

you! Is he mad? Or is he just fooling others? What has happened to him? And I have

touched your feet thousands and thousands of times."

Of course, to Ananda, this Mahakashyap will either look like he is mad or as if he is just

deceiving.

He was with Buddha for forty years, but there was a problem. He was his elder brother,

Buddha's elder brother; that was the problem. When Ananda came to Buddha forty years

before, the first thing he said to Buddha was this: "I am your elder brother, and when you

will initiate me, I will become your disciple. So allow me three things before I become

your disciple, because then I cannot demand. One, I will always be with you. Give me

this promise, that you will not say to me, `Go somewhere else.' I will follow you.

"Secondly, I will sleep in the same room where you sleep. You cannot say to me, `Go

out.' I will be with you like your shadow. And thirdly, if I bring anyone at any time, even

at midnight, you will have to answer him. You cannot say, `This is not the time.' And

give me these three promises while I am still your elder brother, because once I become

your disciple I will have to follow you. You are still younger than me, so give me these

promises."

So Buddha promised, and this became the problem. For forty years Ananda was with

Buddha, but he could never surrender, because this is not the spirit of surrender. Ananda

asked many, many times, "When am I going to attain?" Buddha said, "Unless I die, you

will not attain." And Ananda could attain only when Buddha died.

What happened to this Mahakashyap suddenly? Is Buddha partial -- partial to

Mahakashyap? He is not! He is flowing, constantly flowing.

But you have to be a valley, a womb, to receive him. If you are above him, how can you

receive? That flowing energy cannot come to you, it will miss you. So bow down. Even

in a minor surrender with a master, energy begins to flow. Suddenly, immediately, you

become a vehicle of a great force.

There are thousands and thousands of stories... just by a touch, just by a look, someone

became enlightened. They do not appear rational to us. How is this possible? This is

possible! Even a look from the master into your eyes will change your total being, but it

can change only if your eyes are just vacant, valley-like. If you can absorb the look of the

master, immediately you will be different.

So these are minor surrenders that happen before you surrender totally. And these minor

surrenders prepare you for the total surrender. Once you have known that through

surrender you receive something unknown, unbelievable, unexpected, never even

dreamed of, then you are ready for a major surrender. And that is the work of the master

-- to help you in minor surrenders so that you can gather courage for a major surrender,

for a total surrender.

One last question:

Question 3

WHAT ARE THE EXACT INDICATIONS TO KNOW THAT THE PARTICULAR

TECHNIQUE ONE IS PRACTISING WILL LEAD TO THE ULTIMATE?

There are indications. One, you begin to feel a different identity within you.

You are no more the same. If the technique fits you, immediately you are a different

person. If you are a husband, you are no more the same husband. If you are a shopkeeper,

you are never again the same shopkeeper. Whatsoever you are, if the technique fits you,

you are a different person; that is the first indication. So if you begin to feel strange about

yourself, know that something is happening to you. If you remain the same and do not

feel any strangeness, nothing is happening. This is the first indication of whether a

technique fits you. If it fits, immediately you are transported, transformed into a different

person. Suddenly this happens: you look at the world in a different way. The eyes are the

same, but the looker behind them is different.

Secondly, all that creates tensions, conflicts, starts dropping. It is not that when you have

practiced the method for years, then your conflicts, anxieties, tensions will drop -- no! If

the method fits you, immediately they start dropping. You can feel an aliveness coming

to you; you are being unburdened. You will begin to feel, if the technique fits you, that

gravity has become reversed. Now the earth is not pulling you down. Rather, the sky is

pulling you up. How do you feel when an airplane takes off? Everything is disturbed.

Suddenly there is a jerk, and gravity becomes meaningless. Now the earth is not pulling

you, you are going away from gravity.

The same jerk happens if a meditative technique fits you. Suddenly you take off.

Suddenly you feel the earth has become meaningless; there is no gravity. It is not pulling

you down, you are being pulled up. In religious terminology, this is called "grace". There

are two forces -- gravity and grace. Grace means you are being pulled upwards; gravity

means you are being pulled downwards.

That is why in meditation many people suddenly feel they have no weight. That is why

many people feel an inner levitation. So many have reported this to me when the

technique fits them: "This is strange! We close our eyes and we feel that we are a little bit

above the earth -- one foot, two feet, even four feet above the earth. When we open our

eyes we are just on the ground; when we close our eyes we have levitated. So what is

this? When we open our eyes we are just on the ground! We never levitated."

The body remains on the ground, but you levitate. This levitation is really a pull from the

above. If the technique fits you have been pulled, because the working of the technique is

to make available for you the upward pull. This is what the technique means: to make

you available for the force which can pull you up. So if it fits, you know -- you have

become weightless.

Thirdly, whatsoever you will now do, whatsoever, howsoever trivial, will be different.

You will walk in a different way, you will sit in a different way, you will eat in a

different way.

Everything will be different. This difference you will feel everywhere. Sometimes this

strange experience of being different creates fear. One wants again to go back and be the

same, because one was so attuned with the old. It was a routine world, even boring, but

you were efficient in it.

Now everywhere you will feel a gap. You will feel that your efficiency is lost. You will

feel that your utility is reduced. You will feel that everywhere you are an outsider. One

has to pass through this period. You will become attuned again. You have changed, not

the world, so you will not fit. So remember the third thing: When the technique fits you,

you will not fit into the world. You will become unfit. Everywhere something is loose,

some bolt is missing. Everywhere you will feel that there has been an earthquake. And

everything has remained the same; only you, you, have become different. But you will be

attuned again on a different plane, on a higher plane.

The disturbance is felt just like when a child grows and becomes sexually mature. At the

age of fourteen or fifteen every boy feels that he has become strange. A new force has

entered -- sex. It was not there before, or it was, but it was hidden. Now for the first time

he has become available for a new kind of force. That is why boys are very awkward;

girls, boys, when they become sexually mature, they are very awkward.

They are nowhere. They are no longer children and they are not yet men, so they are in

between, fitting nowhere. If they play with small children they feel awkward -- they have

become men. If they start making friendships with men they feel awkward -- they are still

children. They fit with no one.

The same phenomenon happens when a technique fits you. A new energy source

becomes available that is greater than sex. You are again in a transitory period. Now you

cannot fit in this world of worldly men. You are not a child, and you cannot yet fit in the

world of saints; and in between one feels awkward.

If a technique fits you these three things will come up. You may not have expected that I

would say these things. You may have expected that I would say you will become more

silent, more quiet, and I am saying quite the contrary: you will become more disturbed.

When the technique fits you will become more disturbed, not more silent. Silence will

come later on. And if silence comes and not disturbance, know well that this is not a

technique; this is just getting adjusted to the old pattern.

That is why more people go for a prayer than for meditation because prayer gives you a

consolation. It fits you, adjusts to you, to your world. Prayer was doing virtually the same

thing that psychoanalysts are now doing. If you are disturbed they will make you less

disturbed, adjusted to the pattern, to the society, to the family.

So by going to a psychoanalyst for one, two or three years you will not get better, but you

will be more adjusted. Prayer does the same thing, and priests do the same thing -- they

make you more adjusted.

Your child has died and you are disturbed, and you go to a priest. He says, "Do not be

disturbed. Only those children die early whom God loves more. He calls them up." You

feel satisfied. Your child has been "called up." God loves him more. Or the priest says

something else: "Do not be worried, the soul never dies. Your child is in heaven."

One woman was here just a few days before. Her husband had died just during the past

month. She was disturbed. She came to me and she said, "Only assure me that he is

reborn in a good place and then everything will be okay. Just give me a certainty that he

has not gone to hell or he has not become an animal, that he is in heaven or he has

become a god or some such thing. If you can just assure me of this, then everything is

okay. Then I can bear it; otherwise I am miserable."

The priest would say, "Okay! Your husband is born as a god in the seventh heaven, and

he is very happy. And he is waiting for you."

These prayers, they make you adjusted to the pattern... you feel better. Meditation is a

science. It is not going to help you in adjustment, it is going to help you in

transformation. That is why I say these three signs will be there as indications.

Silence will come, but not as an adjustment. Silence will come as an inner flowering.

Then silence will not be an adjustment with the society, with the family, the world, the

business -- no! Then silence will be a real harmony with the universe.

Then a deep harmony flowers between you and the totality, then there is silence -- but

that will come later. First you will get disturbed, first you will become mad.

If a technique fits, it will make you aware of everything that you are. Your anarchy, your

mind, your madness, everything will come to light. You are just a dark mess. When a

technique fits, it is as if suddenly there is light and the whole mess becomes apparent. For

the first time you will encounter yourself as you are. You would like to put the light off

and go to sleep again -- it is fearful. This is the point where the master becomes helpful.

He says, "Do not be afraid. This is just the beginning. And do not escape from it."

At first this light shows you what you are, and if you can go on and on, it transforms you

toward what you can be.

Enough for today.

THE END.