Yesterday, on the first sutra of life’s revolution, we spoke.
A questioning consciousness, a mind filled with inquiry, a being who does not stay frozen where he happens to be, but longs to become that for which he was born. One seed is wasted away remaining a seed; another travels all the way until the flower opens, encounters the sun, and fills the horizons with its fragrance.
Human beings too are of two kinds. Those who finish with birth itself. They live, yet that living is no journey. That living is merely breathing. That living is only waiting for death. The sole meaning of such a life can be age. Its only meaning is passing time. Many take the span between birth and death to be life. That is one kind.
The other kind takes birth as a seed, and labors with that seed so the plant of life may grow.
Those who inquire take the first step toward becoming a different kind of human being.
What is the second step? What is the second sutra?
About the second sutra, first this: we continually hear, “Know thyself.” We hear it, but its meaning does not reveal itself. We also hear, “That which is above in the sky, that Paramatma toward whom our hands sometimes rise, is also within each.” We hear, “He is within.” But we find no trace of him within. Within we find only ourselves; where is any trace of him? And if we are Paramatma, it sounds like something to laugh at. How are we Paramatma? A beast may be found within us, but no sign of Paramatma. Still, we hear—and we hear this too: that which is to be found is not outside. We also hear that the entire secret is hidden within. There it has to be sought. But where to seek? What does “within” mean? Where to go? Whom to ask within? Where is the door? Where the path? Where the way? Where is that energy concealed? Where is the source of power? Where is the seed within us that can become a flower? If we could find that seed, we could find manure, soil, gather water. But where is the seed?
Today, in this second sutra, I want to say something to you precisely about that seed.
Certainly, that seed is within each. We each are that seed. But where is it?
If we go to look for animals, one thing becomes clear. Where is the center of animals, the point of their life-energy from which they live, where they abide? If we discover the animal’s center, it will be simpler to discover our own. For we, too, are nothing more than a further link in the chain of animals. Not yet more than that. We can become more—but we are not. Man is an advanced link in the animal chain. And at birth, no fundamental difference suddenly appears. Where the animal lives, we live. Where the animal’s center is, our center is.
Where is the animal’s center?
For animals there is neither Paramatma nor Atman. For animals there is no truth, no search for life.
Where do animals live?
The center of an animal’s life is sex. The focus of its life is kama, the sexual drive.
If sex remains the center of a human being’s life, that person has not risen above the animals. Generally, ordinarily, our center is the same.
Even when we build houses, it means little more than a nest that animals make. We hoard wealth—ants hoard, birds hoard—no different. We fight for land, inch by inch: my land, my country’s land, my nation’s land. This too is no different from the animal’s territorial claim. The animal will not tolerate another’s entry upon its ground.
Remember, as long as there are claimants over land—individuals, societies, nations—man cannot rise above animality. All nationalisms, all territorial claims, have come from the animal’s claim over territory.
And the animal lives around sex—kama, the sexual. That is its center. It lives, is born, gives birth, and dies. The sole meaning of its birth is to give birth to others. Strange indeed! The egg becomes a hen, the hen lays eggs. The eggs become hens, the hens lay eggs. The work of the egg is to produce a hen; the work of the hen is to produce eggs. The vicious circle goes on.
Someone asked, “What is an egg?” Someone replied: The egg is the way by which, through the hen, an egg again becomes an egg. The egg becomes a hen, and then again becomes an egg.
Animals revolve around reproduction. The entire animal nature, the whole world of plants too, give birth to another and die. This is their aim. If a man lives only to produce a few children, how is he different from animals and plants?
Ordinarily, our center too is sex. This must be understood. Because from that very center the power can rise—the seed can arise—that reaches to Paramatma. As a seed is sown in the earth, its shell breaks, a plant emerges, it begins to rise toward the sky, comes out of the soil, flowers bloom, fragrance spreads.
Sex—the sensory organ of kama, lust—the entire power is gathered around that craving; all energy is pooled there. That energy will either be spent in producing more children and the man will be wasted, or that energy can become upward-moving. Leaving the lower door, it can move above. And if the sexual energy begins to rise, it reaches those centers in the brain where flowers bloom, where flowers can bloom.
Where is our life hidden?
Our life is hidden exactly in the middle of the body. From there it either flows downward—and then progeny goes on being born—or it rises upward and attains the experience of Paramatma. Where we take it is in our hands. Where we are taking it is up to us. If we keep letting it flow downward and get wasted, we will never become acquainted with the pathways hidden above. And the secrets, the mysteries, the bliss, the truth that were concealed will remain unknown.
So when I say, inquire—Who am I?... Yesterday I said, in the ordinary twenty-four hours of life, hold one inquiry: Who am I? Let the question arise in your very life-breath, Who am I? Sitting, rising, walking on the road, let someone within startle you: Who am I? Going to bed at night, waking in the morning, let someone within scream: Who am I? Then you will be amazed. The more intensely the question rises within, the more active it becomes, the more it circulates, the more you will be amazed that around your sex-centers something begins to move, something trembles, something stirs; a new sprout seems to be quivering within, swaying, rising.
Therefore it often happens that those who enter spiritual practice suddenly feel their sexual urge has increased. There is no other cause. Whoever inquires into life, whoever sets out in search of life, the very first impact will be at the source of birth. From there the journey begins.
Thus whoever inquires, practices, asks, seeks, will suddenly find as if the urge for sex is intensifying. Do not be afraid of it. Ask more intensely, seek more keenly: where in the body is that place? Pinpoint it—where is that center at which the vibration is happening? And if you meditate upon it, sit in solitude and take your entire attention there where the vibration is, where new energy is rising, a new door will open within you, which is now closed. A seed will break; a new journey will begin. The stone over a spring will be removed and a stream will start to flow.
But we have never asked. If a person sits for a while in solitude and only inquires, Who am I? and keeps asking only this—Who am I? Who am I?—he will be astonished. The entire blow of “Who am I?” falls upon the center of sex. The final strike of that “I am” lands upon the center of kama; something there begins to vibrate and awaken. There, power is gathered, there is the reservoir, everything is stored. It can flow downward; it can be led upward. By merely reading scriptures and learning to say, “I am Atman,” no one can reach anywhere. Something must be done.
First: inquiry.
Second: the center of inquiry.
Where to concentrate the inquiry? Where to ask? At what spot to strike? Where should the whole consciousness gather to strike?
As a man digs a well: if he digs at one place, after a while stones will be removed, earth will be cleared, rubbish will go, and the water-source will begin to appear. But if another man digs two feet here, four feet there, some elsewhere, he will dig a lot and never get water anywhere.
Remember, those who go into sadhana are going to dig the well of life. It must be clear to them that their whole inquiry, the whole practice, all their meditation, all the awareness of their life must keep striking at one place—again and again—so that the veils there break, the soil is cut through, the rock is cut through, and the sources of life begin to reveal themselves.
Keep in mind one thing that has utterly disappeared from humanity’s attention. The reason it has disappeared is that regarding sex we never say anything to anyone. We say nothing to children. We do not know that precisely there is hidden the power that will become the path to Paramatma. Certainly there too is hidden the power that takes one to the animal. There too is hidden the power that descends into darkness; and there too is hidden the power that takes into light. But if we keep it all concealed, cover it from every side and let no one come to know, then that seed will not be able to move toward light; know well, it will go by itself toward darkness. For going downward needs no support, no guidance, no knowledge—downward happens on its own. Downward is instinctive, natural.
Thus when a child becomes young, the downward journey of sex will begin by itself. And about the upward journey he has neither been told nor taught. His parents, his society, his teachers, out of fear that some danger may arise and someone may go into darkness, have concealed the whole matter. That concealment has become very dangerous. Its result is one: the very power that could have carried us upward now only carries us downward and nowhere else.
So today, on this second sutra, I want to point you to that center: if you become alert to it, a revolution will happen in your life. And if you do not, no revolution can ever happen to you.
From where will the revolution of life begin? Where is that fire from which we shall light the lamp? Where is it within us?
It is not in our brain, that fire; it is not even in our heart. It is concentrated at our sex-center. When it rises from there, it will come to the heart. And when that fire, that flaming flame, comes to the heart, the whole life becomes love. And when that flame rises to the brain, the whole life becomes knowing. But the fire is one, and right now it is gathered at the sex-center, halted there. From there the vessel is leaking; from there it flows away. As if a pot has a hole at the bottom and all its water spills. The question of lifting it above does not even arise.
If the sexual energy keeps flowing downward, we behave only like animals; we never become human. However much we cover ourselves, conceal ourselves, the animal sits within. All our manners, civilization, culture make us only cultured animals—and nothing more. But within, the same is seated. Look at our films, our literature, our poetry, our music, our dance—behind all of it, turn where you will, sex stands there!
In all aspects of life we have tried to hide it from every side, but sex stands there. We cannot hide it. We can transform it; we cannot hide it. And if we transform it, what we know as sex, what we call kama, becomes Ram. But we will transform it only when we recognize where it is. It needs right observation, precise witnessing; the right labor at the right spot. If the work is not at the right spot, we will keep wandering, keep laboring—and there will be no result.
Therefore, in this second sutra I say to you: do not sit hiding, forgetting, casting into darkness your sex-energy, your virya’s power. Otherwise you will never reach the temple of life’s truth. That very virya’s power will carry you. Become conscious of it; become alert to it.
And in the third sutra I will tell you how to transform it.
But in the second sutra it is essential to recognize it. In each of our bodies, where is the center of energy, of power? We must come to know it.
By splitting a tiny atom, scientists have accessed immense power! Atoms have always been. But until this century nobody knew the atom’s power. Had someone, a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years ago said that by the explosion of a tiny atom one hundred and twenty thousand people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be burned to ash—by a tiny atom’s explosion—people would have laughed: you are mad! How can such an explosion be in such a small atom?
But have you ever thought: if such an outcome can arise from the explosion of an ordinary oxygen or hydrogen atom, the atom of sex is a living atom. We have so far exploded dead atoms. The day we can explode the living atom, what will happen?
All of religion’s search, all of yoga’s practice, all the rules of tantra are nothing but the methods to explode the energy latent in that living atom and lead it upward.
But we have no awareness of it. We are also afraid of it. It is dangerous too. After all, the atomic explosion proved dangerous. In dangerous hands any power can be dangerous. Perhaps that is why the most important bundle of power within the human being has been arranged to be hidden, so that it remains concealed and none may know—lest this power fall into dangerous hands.
But power in itself is neither inauspicious nor auspicious. It can be taken toward the auspicious, or toward the inauspicious. And he who halts out of fear of the inauspicious will not be able to take it toward the auspicious either.
Thus humanity has stalled. Man has been on earth for roughly two million years; in two million years only a hundred or two hundred have attained to that state where each human being should already have arrived. A few, countable on fingers, have truly become human in these two million years.
And this vast humanity lives on the animal plane. Man sires children and is finished. The mother gives birth to a daughter, the father to a son—and they are done. And the doors hidden above within themselves—they never even become acquainted with them.
From the outside, no one can tell by the body that Paramatma might be hidden within. Go to a physiologist, an anatomist—he will dissect the body and say: we see nothing of the sort here. Nothing appears here. No such power is seen that rises upward.
It is not seen. The truth is: whatever is deepest and most significant is not seen. Do atoms appear? Does the electron appear? The neutron? What appears? The deeper we have entered matter, the more we have reached the place where seeing ends. We only see effects; what it is does not appear.
As deep as we go into matter, we reach where it is no longer visible. As deep as man goes into himself, again comes the zone where seeing ends. But about matter we accept the invisible; about man we dissect and decree: nothing is seen here.
Yet it can be seen—by me within me; by you within you. And if I begin to see within me, then within you too it begins to be seen. But I cannot show it to another.
All of you are sitting here. If I say, I not only see you, I also see that which is gathered within you—that too I cannot show to another. And how far it has risen—that too can be seen. But that seeing is not of the material kind. And whoever stops at the material and says, “Only what can be seen we will accept,”—if you give him a seed, he will break it to pieces and say: there is no flower here. But the flower is there!
Perhaps you don’t know: a scientist was doing some experiments and something astonishing occurred. He was observing a seed through a very fine microscope, and was amazed—suddenly for an instant a flower appeared; it was no longer a seed! He blinked and looked again closely—and still he saw a flower. He removed the microscope—there was the seed. He told others; but others saw only a seed. He sowed the seed; when the flower appeared he was stunned: the flower was exactly what he had seen through the microscope!
It seems impossible. But not so impossible. The flower is, in some sense, hidden within the seed. If not today, tomorrow we may find ways by which the hidden tomorrow becomes visible today. What lies in the future appears today. In truth, the future is only beyond the range of our seeing.
We sit here; above us, a man sits in a tree. A road runs by; we sit under the tree. A bullock cart appears a little distance away, two furlongs off. Beyond it we see nothing. Another cart comes beyond it—but we cannot see it. The man on the tree says, Another cart is coming. We say, We do not see; it cannot be. He says, It comes. We say, It is in the future; how can we know it now? For us it is future—because we sit below. For the one atop the tree it can be present—because he sits above. The higher consciousness rises, the more those possibilities that will be tomorrow can be seen today.
Perhaps you know: when Buddha was born, a strange event happened. A sannyasin descended from the Himalayas. As he left his hermitage, his friends asked, Where are you going? He said, I go to see the one who has just been born—he will soon be a Buddha. But by then I will not be alive. I will never behold him as Buddha. I will go now and see him.
The ascetic came to Buddha’s home. Buddha’s father brought the small child to him. The sannyasin bowed at the infant’s feet and tears flowed from his eyes. Buddha’s father was frightened. He said, You weep? Give a blessing. You weep and we are afraid—will some ill omen occur? The old sannyasin said, No ill omen. I weep for myself. I see the seed and shall not see the flower. I will be gone in six months. This flower will bloom—but I shall not see it. This person will be a Buddha, he will awaken. In the shade and light of his radiance, many will see many things. I shall miss it; I shall be deprived.
Buddha’s father could not understand. If someone sat by a seed and spoke of a flower, would we understand? He thought the man mad. But when Buddha’s flower bloomed, the father asked forgiveness: I had laughed at that old man that day. How was I to know? How was I to know one can see ahead?
Within each of us that which is hidden is even now giving news of what lies ahead. If we begin to search, we will find how far it has developed. If a person inquires and lets his attention hover around the sex-center, taking awareness there to see what is happening, he will sense the vibrations of power. How far those vibrations rise—that is the state of our development. We must bring those vibrations above. Bring them up to where the very far edge of the brain is reached and the full current of life is awakened.
The name of the sleeping power at the sex-center is Kundalini. She sleeps coiled, as a serpent sleeps. If she awakens, she rises like a hood all the way up. On some Jina Tirthankara idols you have seen the serpent-hood raised above them. Do not think that some snake came to shelter them, or that such stories were fabricated. Those are symbols—symbols of that power which has uncoiled and whose hood has fully opened, blossomed, and revealed itself above.
That coiled power is hidden in each. Its name is life-force. And in all of us she lies asleep at the center of kama, unable to rise above. Whether we become householders or run to be sannyasins, if our consciousness roams around kama—whether for or against—our center remains there; we cannot rise above.
To raise it above is a scientific process. The first step in that science is recognition: where is it?
I could place my hand upon you and say: here. But my placing a hand is of little use. You yourself, some quiet moment each day, must sit and search within—where is my life-energy? Where is my life-energy?
You will be amazed: till three hundred years ago, it was not known that blood circulates in the body. It was known only that blood is filled within. Two million years man has been on earth, and did not know blood circulates. Until attention turned that way, how could it be known? We thought the blood was filled—cut anywhere and blood comes out, like water in a vessel. Only in the last three hundred years did we learn blood circles.
A few have come to know that sex-energy also rises upward. Most only know it goes downward. Those who know it goes downward should take note: whatever can go downward can go upward. Whatever can take you down can take you up. And to the same extent it can take you up as it can take you down.
Go to any tree. You see the tree above. However high the tree stands above, know its roots have gone equally deep below. The deeper the roots go, the higher the trunk rises. The tree that would touch the heavens must send its roots to the nethermost. Without that no tree touches the sky. If someone says, I know a tree whose above is nothing, only its roots go downward and downward—we would say he is mad, or else he knows nothing of the tree above. The two are balanced. Above and below are in balance. The center is in the middle.
A journey downward is possible; a journey upward is possible. And the possibility for going down is equal to the possibility for going up. Very few come to know the upwardness of sex-energy.
When virya’s power becomes the energy that moves on the path above, we call it brahmacharya. Brahmacharya does not mean forcibly stopping the power of kama. Brahmacharya means the upward journey of kama’s power has begun—the downward ceases, the upward begins. Not suppression. For if a suppressed energy goes neither up nor down and is stopped in between, it can only unbalance and unhinge the person.
Thus those who have no knowledge of how to lead it up, if they suppress it—as the books say, brahmacharya is life, be celibate, do this, do that—if they suppress it, they will be deranged, nothing else. For the energy that goes neither up nor down, that is frozen midway, will explode; it will drive one mad. As many insane as there are on earth today are, in one sense or another, the outcome of sex-energy gone on wrong routes, exploded, perverted, distorted.
So there are three possibilities: go downward as the animals travel; or become perverse and deranged as the so-called civilized man is becoming; or rise upward.
But to go upward, first recognize the power precisely—where it is. Whatever you would transform, without understanding it exactly, no one can transform. Without right recognition, one cannot even touch it.
You have noticed—we all wear clothes. Perhaps you have never noted: in the thickest jungles among the most primitive people, even if no clothing is worn, a single leaf will be tied over the sex-center! Have you wondered—when the whole body may be naked, why is there the impulse to cover only the center of kama?
Perhaps you have never thought. Such a power is gathered at the sex-center that even another’s eyes falling upon it disturb and agitate it.
Now the latest discovery is that matter itself changes behavior under observation. If we try to watch, with very large instruments, tiny fleeing atoms and electrons, they do not move the way they moved unobserved. When we try to see them, there is a difference in their speed, a change.
Imagine you are walking alone on the road. Suddenly you sense someone behind, watching. Alone, you walk one way; you are one kind of person. Let the footfall of another be heard; you are no longer the same. A subtle difference arises. You become another person, you grow cautious. You no longer walk the same, you no longer hum the same. Your feet are disciplined—you change, you become civilized, not simple. You bathe in the bathroom, you make faces in the mirror, naked you dance. And if you become aware that someone is looking through the keyhole—you change at once. Simply the knowing that you are seen changes you.
Observation creates such difficulty—you become different!
Long ago it was known that at the sex-center such power is pooled that another’s gaze activates it. It activates, it alters it. If the lover’s eyes fall on it, they carry it upward. If the hater’s eyes fall, they drag it down. Hence we can be naked before the one we love. Only for this reason—no other. Before the one we love, we can be utterly naked. No fear.
Why no fear?
We remove all veils, all garments before them.
Why?
There is no fear. The eye filled with love, the observing filled with love, becomes the carrier of those energies upward. This was understood long ago; hence the impulse arose to conceal and cover that center.
You have seen sadhus and sannyasins who sit naked yet are covered with ash. Now if you sit naked, why smear ash? To prevent every eye from falling upon the inner workings of energy. To veil it.
You have seen people returning from temples with a tilak on the brow. They do not know why they apply it. They do not know that this tilak is meaningful only for those whose sex-energy has reached the ajna chakra; and so it should not be visible to any and everyone. Put sandal paste upon it so it hides beneath; no eye should fall upon it. Otherwise it will create much heat, agitation, difficulty. Now anyone applies it without knowing.
Life has become strange. Things fall into the hands of those who do not know what is happening. Why do you return with a tilak? Someone runs to the temple, applies it and returns. He does not know that the lock he is putting upon his safe his father used to put because there was something inside. Your safe contains nothing; only because the father locked it you also lock it—and you return home happy that you possess treasure! Locking a safe can be meaningful; it is a science. Otherwise it is pointless.
The centers where power is at work should not come under the gaze of others. But if they are seen by loving eyes, they receive growth. Hence a seeker among friends can leave his centers open. Their eyes will assist in moving the sleeping powers ahead.
Perhaps you do not know: botanists now say, if you love a plant, its growth quickens. If a gardener loves his plant, it will flower sooner than with a gardener who does not love. What has love to do with a plant? But love conveys unknown powers, unknown electric currents, energies from one’s prana—some vibrations reach the plant and it grows faster.
We raise a child near his mother; raise him elsewhere—give him food, fine clothes, good arrangements, all facilities that a poor mother could never give. Still you will find something lacking. Something is missing. Some one vitamin that came from the mother did not come. There is also a vitamin from the mother for which no capsule yet exists—a mother-vitamin. Perhaps someday a capsule will be made. But something the mother gives is so subtle that medicines cannot, no drug can. The mother’s warmth, her nearness give it. In that nearness, the child grows; something moves in him.
Small groups of friends can awaken one another’s centers. If fifty people sit together and meditate upon the center, the vibrations, the electric atmosphere around those fifty will create an intense movement within each.
And if this sleeping Kundalini begins to be recognized—where she is—then as soon as you recognize where, the entire course of your life will change. For the first time you will know: the treasure is here—what am I searching for elsewhere! For the first time you will know: the power is here—what am I searching for elsewhere! For the first time you will know: bliss is here—what am I searching for elsewhere! And then life undergoes a conversion…
Conversion does not mean a Hindu becoming a Muslim. That is foolishness. What meaning has a Muslim becoming a Hindu, a Christian a Jain, a Jain a Christian? None. Conversion means: someone turns from the outer to the inner. Whether he is Hindu or Muslim or Christian or anything—or nothing. One turns from outside to inside; the center of attraction shifts from the outer to the inner—that is conversion. He returns, he comes home. He reaches where the journey is meaningful, essential, substantial.
Inquire “Who am I?” and, with eyes closed, search around your sex-center: where is the sensation, the pulsation of power? Where does it become evident that power is? It will become clear. As when one sits in silence, the heartbeat is felt. Busy all day, you do not feel it; silent, the heartbeat is felt. If you become even more silent and take attention there, you will become acquainted with a new kind of pulsation, a new vibration you knew nothing of—a new nerve you will find, the nerve of life. Somewhere something quivers; a bud, a sprout strains to emerge; something is eager to burst forth; a spring longs to break. When you sense it there, try to recognize it daily.
As when one has found treasure, he opens the safe in solitude each day, looks, closes the safe, returns. As with a diamond in the pocket—he talks with others, and now and then slides a hand into the pocket to feel the diamond, and withdraws. In this way, whenever in the twenty-four hours there is a chance, go near that pulsation, that inner center where things are trembling and struggling to move toward a new direction of life; where consciousness is trying to surpass the human; where consciousness wishes to transcend—breaking walls, breaking shells, rising above, to go elsewhere. Recognize that place. Then, whatever is happening—whether in the shop or the marketplace—you will find chance and slip within, recognize that place and return. A loving care, a tender guarding will arise—that within there is also a place, a temple.
As this guarding grows, this attention, this watchfulness, there will begin the experience of a very clear flame, a very clear flowing of awakened power. Slowly you will sense by what path the wave can move onward, and how it can reach where union happens—where there is union with that for which our very life-breath yearns; where we attain that which we have sought for who knows how many births, through how many journeys—called, cried for, yet caught no glimpse. The wonder is, it is with us!
I have heard: a man set out to find his horse and asked everywhere, Where is my horse? Where is my horse? He was riding the horse! But all those he asked thought: it cannot be this horse, for he is sitting upon it. It must be some other horse. They said, We have not seen it; it did not pass this way. He would go another road and ask, Where is my horse? And those he met thought: he does not mean the horse he rides, for of that there is no need to ask; it must be another horse. They told other ways: look that road; not this one.
You go on the road of wealth asking, Where is bliss? Those on that road will say, We did not find it—but try another way, the road of fame perhaps. On the road of fame others will say, Not here—try knowledge. There are a thousand roads. Man wanders, wanders. And after each life he forgets that there has been enough wandering—and a new wandering begins. The same mistake again and again. And slowly we forget that what we seek—perhaps we do not find it precisely because we are riding upon it! Perhaps we are that!
And I tell you: we are that which we are seeking! We are what we ask for! We are what we call for! So long as we call and search and run, we will never get it. So much calling will be wasted, so much running vain.
If it is to be attained, first this must be found: what am I! And the first point of this “what I am” is where we are now. We are not on Paramatma yet; we are not on Ram; we are on kama, on sex. From there we must begin. From there the search must start.
So today I give you this second sutra: within yourself, find that pulsing point where the whole center is. For twenty-four hours remember where. Once it begins to appear, even remembering is not needed.
As a village woman comes from the well with a pot of water, talking to her friends, not even touching the pot—yet the pot remains balanced. Something within holds it steady. Holds it! The hands do not hold it; she gossips loudly, walks along. You may think she has completely left the pot. She has not left it at all. Her entire consciousness, her whole attention, holds the pot.
So too one does everything, while within the whole attention holds that point. And as soon as someone holds that point attentively, the revolution begins. The moment one attentively holds that point, the upward journey begins. And the moment one turns one’s back to that point, the downward journey begins. The downward journey of sex goes into darkness, ignorance, unawareness, stupor. The upward journey of sex goes into alertness, awakening, awareness. Only this one thing—are you aware toward that point, or unconscious? If unconscious, you will drift downward and downward. If aware, you stand at the first door above.
How the further journey happens—we shall speak of it tomorrow morning.
One small story, and I will finish.
Near a fakir’s ashram some merchants would pass by, going to sell their wares in a distant market. On the way they thought to tether their camels, visit the fakir’s ashram. It was morning; the first rays had spread. They reached the ashram and were astonished. A strange ashram! People were dancing, leaping, laughing; someone played the veena. Some said, What kind of ashram is this? What kind of practice? What are these people doing? Some said, We have never seen such an ashram. Come, let us return—this is deception. Merrymaking, music and color!
But the fakir said nothing; he smiled. His disciples kept dancing. The merchants went away.
A year later they returned. They thought, Let us glance at that ashram again—what is its condition now? Nearing the ashram, they found deep silence. Peeking inside, all those whom they had seen dancing were sitting under trees with eyes closed, lost who knows where. Some said, Now it is somewhat right. This we can understand. This seems good.
The fakir again smiled. He still said nothing. They went away.
The third year they again went on business. Let us see that ashram, they thought.
First time—dance and color. Second time—utterly silent sitting. This time—there was profound emptiness. Looking within, no one was there. Only the Guru sat quietly beneath a bush.
They said, Ah! Where have all the disciples gone?
The Guru said, Now I will tell you. You asked again and again; I remained silent. For wayfarers it is not possible to tell everything. Nor is it to their benefit. And those who blurt out things on the road do not seem very wise. Still, since you have come the third time, I will tell you. The first time my disciples were where all men are—and the journey can only begin from where one is. If I had seated them solemnly, that solemnity would have been false—as the solemnity of serious people often is false. Within sits the same man, the one who wants to dance and leap; above they wear long faces. Inside, the same commotion continues. I can begin the journey only from where a man is. They had come—they were here, in this world of merriment. It was necessary to begin here. I first taught them to be aware amidst dance and song—to dance and sing, and become aware within at which point the pulsation of their life is.
They said, Oh! We had thought, what a ruckus! What kind of ashram! What kind of Guru!
The fakir laughed. He said, Only the foolish decide so quickly. In truth, the wise do not decide about others at all; they decide only about themselves.
Still, they asked: When we came the second time, what had happened?
The Guru said: They had recognized their point, and that point became so flavorful that dancing became meaningless. That point began to give such music that the outer music—the veena—was abandoned. They went so deep into inner bliss that they said, We now want to be silent outside. Conversion happened. We said, If you want to be silent, be so. They fell silent. When you passed the second time, they were at the second stage.
They asked, Where are they now?
The Guru said: Now the matter is complete. They reached where, having arrived, there remains no further journey. I bid them farewell. They are gone. I sit here alone. Now I wait again for those who will come dancing—so that I may lead them from the body’s dance to that where the dance of Paramatma is.
But every journey begins from where we are. And where we are, we want to hide; and what we are not, we want to claim. Then difficulties begin. And the whole human race is trapped in this: man is an animal, and he thinks himself Paramatma.
Man can be Paramatma. Remember: can be—not is. He who believes “I am,” his journey ends here.
Man is an animal—it hurts to accept. But what is true should not be painful to accept. We stand at the animal point; from there we must journey—and reach where Paramatma is.
How this journey can be, its third stage, I will speak about tomorrow evening.
I am very obliged by the love and silence with which you have listened. And in the end I bow to the Paramatma dwelling in all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
Yesterday, on the first sutra of life’s revolution, we spoke.
A questioning consciousness, a mind filled with inquiry, a being who does not stay frozen where he happens to be, but longs to become that for which he was born. One seed is wasted away remaining a seed; another travels all the way until the flower opens, encounters the sun, and fills the horizons with its fragrance.
Human beings too are of two kinds. Those who finish with birth itself. They live, yet that living is no journey. That living is merely breathing. That living is only waiting for death. The sole meaning of such a life can be age. Its only meaning is passing time. Many take the span between birth and death to be life. That is one kind.
The other kind takes birth as a seed, and labors with that seed so the plant of life may grow.
Those who inquire take the first step toward becoming a different kind of human being.
What is the second step? What is the second sutra?
About the second sutra, first this: we continually hear, “Know thyself.” We hear it, but its meaning does not reveal itself. We also hear, “That which is above in the sky, that Paramatma toward whom our hands sometimes rise, is also within each.” We hear, “He is within.” But we find no trace of him within. Within we find only ourselves; where is any trace of him? And if we are Paramatma, it sounds like something to laugh at. How are we Paramatma? A beast may be found within us, but no sign of Paramatma. Still, we hear—and we hear this too: that which is to be found is not outside. We also hear that the entire secret is hidden within. There it has to be sought. But where to seek? What does “within” mean? Where to go? Whom to ask within? Where is the door? Where the path? Where the way? Where is that energy concealed? Where is the source of power? Where is the seed within us that can become a flower? If we could find that seed, we could find manure, soil, gather water. But where is the seed?
Today, in this second sutra, I want to say something to you precisely about that seed.
Certainly, that seed is within each. We each are that seed. But where is it?
If we go to look for animals, one thing becomes clear. Where is the center of animals, the point of their life-energy from which they live, where they abide? If we discover the animal’s center, it will be simpler to discover our own. For we, too, are nothing more than a further link in the chain of animals. Not yet more than that. We can become more—but we are not. Man is an advanced link in the animal chain. And at birth, no fundamental difference suddenly appears. Where the animal lives, we live. Where the animal’s center is, our center is.
Where is the animal’s center?
For animals there is neither Paramatma nor Atman. For animals there is no truth, no search for life.
Where do animals live?
The center of an animal’s life is sex. The focus of its life is kama, the sexual drive.
If sex remains the center of a human being’s life, that person has not risen above the animals. Generally, ordinarily, our center is the same.
Even when we build houses, it means little more than a nest that animals make. We hoard wealth—ants hoard, birds hoard—no different. We fight for land, inch by inch: my land, my country’s land, my nation’s land. This too is no different from the animal’s territorial claim. The animal will not tolerate another’s entry upon its ground.
Remember, as long as there are claimants over land—individuals, societies, nations—man cannot rise above animality. All nationalisms, all territorial claims, have come from the animal’s claim over territory.
And the animal lives around sex—kama, the sexual. That is its center. It lives, is born, gives birth, and dies. The sole meaning of its birth is to give birth to others. Strange indeed! The egg becomes a hen, the hen lays eggs. The eggs become hens, the hens lay eggs. The work of the egg is to produce a hen; the work of the hen is to produce eggs. The vicious circle goes on.
Someone asked, “What is an egg?” Someone replied: The egg is the way by which, through the hen, an egg again becomes an egg. The egg becomes a hen, and then again becomes an egg.
Animals revolve around reproduction. The entire animal nature, the whole world of plants too, give birth to another and die. This is their aim. If a man lives only to produce a few children, how is he different from animals and plants?
Ordinarily, our center too is sex. This must be understood. Because from that very center the power can rise—the seed can arise—that reaches to Paramatma. As a seed is sown in the earth, its shell breaks, a plant emerges, it begins to rise toward the sky, comes out of the soil, flowers bloom, fragrance spreads.
Sex—the sensory organ of kama, lust—the entire power is gathered around that craving; all energy is pooled there. That energy will either be spent in producing more children and the man will be wasted, or that energy can become upward-moving. Leaving the lower door, it can move above. And if the sexual energy begins to rise, it reaches those centers in the brain where flowers bloom, where flowers can bloom.
Where is our life hidden?
Our life is hidden exactly in the middle of the body. From there it either flows downward—and then progeny goes on being born—or it rises upward and attains the experience of Paramatma. Where we take it is in our hands. Where we are taking it is up to us. If we keep letting it flow downward and get wasted, we will never become acquainted with the pathways hidden above. And the secrets, the mysteries, the bliss, the truth that were concealed will remain unknown.
So when I say, inquire—Who am I?... Yesterday I said, in the ordinary twenty-four hours of life, hold one inquiry: Who am I? Let the question arise in your very life-breath, Who am I? Sitting, rising, walking on the road, let someone within startle you: Who am I? Going to bed at night, waking in the morning, let someone within scream: Who am I? Then you will be amazed. The more intensely the question rises within, the more active it becomes, the more it circulates, the more you will be amazed that around your sex-centers something begins to move, something trembles, something stirs; a new sprout seems to be quivering within, swaying, rising.
Therefore it often happens that those who enter spiritual practice suddenly feel their sexual urge has increased. There is no other cause. Whoever inquires into life, whoever sets out in search of life, the very first impact will be at the source of birth. From there the journey begins.
Thus whoever inquires, practices, asks, seeks, will suddenly find as if the urge for sex is intensifying. Do not be afraid of it. Ask more intensely, seek more keenly: where in the body is that place? Pinpoint it—where is that center at which the vibration is happening? And if you meditate upon it, sit in solitude and take your entire attention there where the vibration is, where new energy is rising, a new door will open within you, which is now closed. A seed will break; a new journey will begin. The stone over a spring will be removed and a stream will start to flow.
But we have never asked. If a person sits for a while in solitude and only inquires, Who am I? and keeps asking only this—Who am I? Who am I?—he will be astonished. The entire blow of “Who am I?” falls upon the center of sex. The final strike of that “I am” lands upon the center of kama; something there begins to vibrate and awaken. There, power is gathered, there is the reservoir, everything is stored. It can flow downward; it can be led upward. By merely reading scriptures and learning to say, “I am Atman,” no one can reach anywhere. Something must be done.
First: inquiry.
Second: the center of inquiry.
Where to concentrate the inquiry? Where to ask? At what spot to strike? Where should the whole consciousness gather to strike?
As a man digs a well: if he digs at one place, after a while stones will be removed, earth will be cleared, rubbish will go, and the water-source will begin to appear. But if another man digs two feet here, four feet there, some elsewhere, he will dig a lot and never get water anywhere.
Remember, those who go into sadhana are going to dig the well of life. It must be clear to them that their whole inquiry, the whole practice, all their meditation, all the awareness of their life must keep striking at one place—again and again—so that the veils there break, the soil is cut through, the rock is cut through, and the sources of life begin to reveal themselves.
Keep in mind one thing that has utterly disappeared from humanity’s attention. The reason it has disappeared is that regarding sex we never say anything to anyone. We say nothing to children. We do not know that precisely there is hidden the power that will become the path to Paramatma. Certainly there too is hidden the power that takes one to the animal. There too is hidden the power that descends into darkness; and there too is hidden the power that takes into light. But if we keep it all concealed, cover it from every side and let no one come to know, then that seed will not be able to move toward light; know well, it will go by itself toward darkness. For going downward needs no support, no guidance, no knowledge—downward happens on its own. Downward is instinctive, natural.
Thus when a child becomes young, the downward journey of sex will begin by itself. And about the upward journey he has neither been told nor taught. His parents, his society, his teachers, out of fear that some danger may arise and someone may go into darkness, have concealed the whole matter. That concealment has become very dangerous. Its result is one: the very power that could have carried us upward now only carries us downward and nowhere else.
So today, on this second sutra, I want to point you to that center: if you become alert to it, a revolution will happen in your life. And if you do not, no revolution can ever happen to you.
From where will the revolution of life begin? Where is that fire from which we shall light the lamp? Where is it within us?
It is not in our brain, that fire; it is not even in our heart. It is concentrated at our sex-center. When it rises from there, it will come to the heart. And when that fire, that flaming flame, comes to the heart, the whole life becomes love. And when that flame rises to the brain, the whole life becomes knowing. But the fire is one, and right now it is gathered at the sex-center, halted there. From there the vessel is leaking; from there it flows away. As if a pot has a hole at the bottom and all its water spills. The question of lifting it above does not even arise.
If the sexual energy keeps flowing downward, we behave only like animals; we never become human. However much we cover ourselves, conceal ourselves, the animal sits within. All our manners, civilization, culture make us only cultured animals—and nothing more. But within, the same is seated. Look at our films, our literature, our poetry, our music, our dance—behind all of it, turn where you will, sex stands there!
In all aspects of life we have tried to hide it from every side, but sex stands there. We cannot hide it. We can transform it; we cannot hide it. And if we transform it, what we know as sex, what we call kama, becomes Ram. But we will transform it only when we recognize where it is. It needs right observation, precise witnessing; the right labor at the right spot. If the work is not at the right spot, we will keep wandering, keep laboring—and there will be no result.
Therefore, in this second sutra I say to you: do not sit hiding, forgetting, casting into darkness your sex-energy, your virya’s power. Otherwise you will never reach the temple of life’s truth. That very virya’s power will carry you. Become conscious of it; become alert to it.
And in the third sutra I will tell you how to transform it.
But in the second sutra it is essential to recognize it. In each of our bodies, where is the center of energy, of power? We must come to know it.
By splitting a tiny atom, scientists have accessed immense power! Atoms have always been. But until this century nobody knew the atom’s power. Had someone, a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years ago said that by the explosion of a tiny atom one hundred and twenty thousand people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be burned to ash—by a tiny atom’s explosion—people would have laughed: you are mad! How can such an explosion be in such a small atom?
But have you ever thought: if such an outcome can arise from the explosion of an ordinary oxygen or hydrogen atom, the atom of sex is a living atom. We have so far exploded dead atoms. The day we can explode the living atom, what will happen?
All of religion’s search, all of yoga’s practice, all the rules of tantra are nothing but the methods to explode the energy latent in that living atom and lead it upward.
But we have no awareness of it. We are also afraid of it. It is dangerous too. After all, the atomic explosion proved dangerous. In dangerous hands any power can be dangerous. Perhaps that is why the most important bundle of power within the human being has been arranged to be hidden, so that it remains concealed and none may know—lest this power fall into dangerous hands.
But power in itself is neither inauspicious nor auspicious. It can be taken toward the auspicious, or toward the inauspicious. And he who halts out of fear of the inauspicious will not be able to take it toward the auspicious either.
Thus humanity has stalled. Man has been on earth for roughly two million years; in two million years only a hundred or two hundred have attained to that state where each human being should already have arrived. A few, countable on fingers, have truly become human in these two million years.
And this vast humanity lives on the animal plane. Man sires children and is finished. The mother gives birth to a daughter, the father to a son—and they are done. And the doors hidden above within themselves—they never even become acquainted with them.
From the outside, no one can tell by the body that Paramatma might be hidden within. Go to a physiologist, an anatomist—he will dissect the body and say: we see nothing of the sort here. Nothing appears here. No such power is seen that rises upward.
It is not seen. The truth is: whatever is deepest and most significant is not seen. Do atoms appear? Does the electron appear? The neutron? What appears? The deeper we have entered matter, the more we have reached the place where seeing ends. We only see effects; what it is does not appear.
As deep as we go into matter, we reach where it is no longer visible. As deep as man goes into himself, again comes the zone where seeing ends. But about matter we accept the invisible; about man we dissect and decree: nothing is seen here.
Yet it can be seen—by me within me; by you within you. And if I begin to see within me, then within you too it begins to be seen. But I cannot show it to another.
All of you are sitting here. If I say, I not only see you, I also see that which is gathered within you—that too I cannot show to another. And how far it has risen—that too can be seen. But that seeing is not of the material kind. And whoever stops at the material and says, “Only what can be seen we will accept,”—if you give him a seed, he will break it to pieces and say: there is no flower here. But the flower is there!
Perhaps you don’t know: a scientist was doing some experiments and something astonishing occurred. He was observing a seed through a very fine microscope, and was amazed—suddenly for an instant a flower appeared; it was no longer a seed! He blinked and looked again closely—and still he saw a flower. He removed the microscope—there was the seed. He told others; but others saw only a seed. He sowed the seed; when the flower appeared he was stunned: the flower was exactly what he had seen through the microscope!
It seems impossible. But not so impossible. The flower is, in some sense, hidden within the seed. If not today, tomorrow we may find ways by which the hidden tomorrow becomes visible today. What lies in the future appears today. In truth, the future is only beyond the range of our seeing.
We sit here; above us, a man sits in a tree. A road runs by; we sit under the tree. A bullock cart appears a little distance away, two furlongs off. Beyond it we see nothing. Another cart comes beyond it—but we cannot see it. The man on the tree says, Another cart is coming. We say, We do not see; it cannot be. He says, It comes. We say, It is in the future; how can we know it now? For us it is future—because we sit below. For the one atop the tree it can be present—because he sits above. The higher consciousness rises, the more those possibilities that will be tomorrow can be seen today.
Perhaps you know: when Buddha was born, a strange event happened. A sannyasin descended from the Himalayas. As he left his hermitage, his friends asked, Where are you going? He said, I go to see the one who has just been born—he will soon be a Buddha. But by then I will not be alive. I will never behold him as Buddha. I will go now and see him.
The ascetic came to Buddha’s home. Buddha’s father brought the small child to him. The sannyasin bowed at the infant’s feet and tears flowed from his eyes. Buddha’s father was frightened. He said, You weep? Give a blessing. You weep and we are afraid—will some ill omen occur? The old sannyasin said, No ill omen. I weep for myself. I see the seed and shall not see the flower. I will be gone in six months. This flower will bloom—but I shall not see it. This person will be a Buddha, he will awaken. In the shade and light of his radiance, many will see many things. I shall miss it; I shall be deprived.
Buddha’s father could not understand. If someone sat by a seed and spoke of a flower, would we understand? He thought the man mad. But when Buddha’s flower bloomed, the father asked forgiveness: I had laughed at that old man that day. How was I to know? How was I to know one can see ahead?
Within each of us that which is hidden is even now giving news of what lies ahead. If we begin to search, we will find how far it has developed. If a person inquires and lets his attention hover around the sex-center, taking awareness there to see what is happening, he will sense the vibrations of power. How far those vibrations rise—that is the state of our development. We must bring those vibrations above. Bring them up to where the very far edge of the brain is reached and the full current of life is awakened.
The name of the sleeping power at the sex-center is Kundalini. She sleeps coiled, as a serpent sleeps. If she awakens, she rises like a hood all the way up. On some Jina Tirthankara idols you have seen the serpent-hood raised above them. Do not think that some snake came to shelter them, or that such stories were fabricated. Those are symbols—symbols of that power which has uncoiled and whose hood has fully opened, blossomed, and revealed itself above.
That coiled power is hidden in each. Its name is life-force. And in all of us she lies asleep at the center of kama, unable to rise above. Whether we become householders or run to be sannyasins, if our consciousness roams around kama—whether for or against—our center remains there; we cannot rise above.
To raise it above is a scientific process. The first step in that science is recognition: where is it?
I could place my hand upon you and say: here. But my placing a hand is of little use. You yourself, some quiet moment each day, must sit and search within—where is my life-energy? Where is my life-energy?
You will be amazed: till three hundred years ago, it was not known that blood circulates in the body. It was known only that blood is filled within. Two million years man has been on earth, and did not know blood circulates. Until attention turned that way, how could it be known? We thought the blood was filled—cut anywhere and blood comes out, like water in a vessel. Only in the last three hundred years did we learn blood circles.
A few have come to know that sex-energy also rises upward. Most only know it goes downward. Those who know it goes downward should take note: whatever can go downward can go upward. Whatever can take you down can take you up. And to the same extent it can take you up as it can take you down.
Go to any tree. You see the tree above. However high the tree stands above, know its roots have gone equally deep below. The deeper the roots go, the higher the trunk rises. The tree that would touch the heavens must send its roots to the nethermost. Without that no tree touches the sky. If someone says, I know a tree whose above is nothing, only its roots go downward and downward—we would say he is mad, or else he knows nothing of the tree above. The two are balanced. Above and below are in balance. The center is in the middle.
A journey downward is possible; a journey upward is possible. And the possibility for going down is equal to the possibility for going up. Very few come to know the upwardness of sex-energy.
When virya’s power becomes the energy that moves on the path above, we call it brahmacharya. Brahmacharya does not mean forcibly stopping the power of kama. Brahmacharya means the upward journey of kama’s power has begun—the downward ceases, the upward begins. Not suppression. For if a suppressed energy goes neither up nor down and is stopped in between, it can only unbalance and unhinge the person.
Thus those who have no knowledge of how to lead it up, if they suppress it—as the books say, brahmacharya is life, be celibate, do this, do that—if they suppress it, they will be deranged, nothing else. For the energy that goes neither up nor down, that is frozen midway, will explode; it will drive one mad. As many insane as there are on earth today are, in one sense or another, the outcome of sex-energy gone on wrong routes, exploded, perverted, distorted.
So there are three possibilities: go downward as the animals travel; or become perverse and deranged as the so-called civilized man is becoming; or rise upward.
But to go upward, first recognize the power precisely—where it is. Whatever you would transform, without understanding it exactly, no one can transform. Without right recognition, one cannot even touch it.
You have noticed—we all wear clothes. Perhaps you have never noted: in the thickest jungles among the most primitive people, even if no clothing is worn, a single leaf will be tied over the sex-center! Have you wondered—when the whole body may be naked, why is there the impulse to cover only the center of kama?
Perhaps you have never thought. Such a power is gathered at the sex-center that even another’s eyes falling upon it disturb and agitate it.
Now the latest discovery is that matter itself changes behavior under observation. If we try to watch, with very large instruments, tiny fleeing atoms and electrons, they do not move the way they moved unobserved. When we try to see them, there is a difference in their speed, a change.
Imagine you are walking alone on the road. Suddenly you sense someone behind, watching. Alone, you walk one way; you are one kind of person. Let the footfall of another be heard; you are no longer the same. A subtle difference arises. You become another person, you grow cautious. You no longer walk the same, you no longer hum the same. Your feet are disciplined—you change, you become civilized, not simple. You bathe in the bathroom, you make faces in the mirror, naked you dance. And if you become aware that someone is looking through the keyhole—you change at once. Simply the knowing that you are seen changes you.
Observation creates such difficulty—you become different!
Long ago it was known that at the sex-center such power is pooled that another’s gaze activates it. It activates, it alters it. If the lover’s eyes fall on it, they carry it upward. If the hater’s eyes fall, they drag it down. Hence we can be naked before the one we love. Only for this reason—no other. Before the one we love, we can be utterly naked. No fear.
Why no fear?
We remove all veils, all garments before them.
Why?
There is no fear. The eye filled with love, the observing filled with love, becomes the carrier of those energies upward. This was understood long ago; hence the impulse arose to conceal and cover that center.
You have seen sadhus and sannyasins who sit naked yet are covered with ash. Now if you sit naked, why smear ash? To prevent every eye from falling upon the inner workings of energy. To veil it.
You have seen people returning from temples with a tilak on the brow. They do not know why they apply it. They do not know that this tilak is meaningful only for those whose sex-energy has reached the ajna chakra; and so it should not be visible to any and everyone. Put sandal paste upon it so it hides beneath; no eye should fall upon it. Otherwise it will create much heat, agitation, difficulty. Now anyone applies it without knowing.
Life has become strange. Things fall into the hands of those who do not know what is happening. Why do you return with a tilak? Someone runs to the temple, applies it and returns. He does not know that the lock he is putting upon his safe his father used to put because there was something inside. Your safe contains nothing; only because the father locked it you also lock it—and you return home happy that you possess treasure! Locking a safe can be meaningful; it is a science. Otherwise it is pointless.
The centers where power is at work should not come under the gaze of others. But if they are seen by loving eyes, they receive growth. Hence a seeker among friends can leave his centers open. Their eyes will assist in moving the sleeping powers ahead.
Perhaps you do not know: botanists now say, if you love a plant, its growth quickens. If a gardener loves his plant, it will flower sooner than with a gardener who does not love. What has love to do with a plant? But love conveys unknown powers, unknown electric currents, energies from one’s prana—some vibrations reach the plant and it grows faster.
We raise a child near his mother; raise him elsewhere—give him food, fine clothes, good arrangements, all facilities that a poor mother could never give. Still you will find something lacking. Something is missing. Some one vitamin that came from the mother did not come. There is also a vitamin from the mother for which no capsule yet exists—a mother-vitamin. Perhaps someday a capsule will be made. But something the mother gives is so subtle that medicines cannot, no drug can. The mother’s warmth, her nearness give it. In that nearness, the child grows; something moves in him.
Small groups of friends can awaken one another’s centers. If fifty people sit together and meditate upon the center, the vibrations, the electric atmosphere around those fifty will create an intense movement within each.
And if this sleeping Kundalini begins to be recognized—where she is—then as soon as you recognize where, the entire course of your life will change. For the first time you will know: the treasure is here—what am I searching for elsewhere! For the first time you will know: the power is here—what am I searching for elsewhere! For the first time you will know: bliss is here—what am I searching for elsewhere! And then life undergoes a conversion…
Conversion does not mean a Hindu becoming a Muslim. That is foolishness. What meaning has a Muslim becoming a Hindu, a Christian a Jain, a Jain a Christian? None. Conversion means: someone turns from the outer to the inner. Whether he is Hindu or Muslim or Christian or anything—or nothing. One turns from outside to inside; the center of attraction shifts from the outer to the inner—that is conversion. He returns, he comes home. He reaches where the journey is meaningful, essential, substantial.
Inquire “Who am I?” and, with eyes closed, search around your sex-center: where is the sensation, the pulsation of power? Where does it become evident that power is? It will become clear. As when one sits in silence, the heartbeat is felt. Busy all day, you do not feel it; silent, the heartbeat is felt. If you become even more silent and take attention there, you will become acquainted with a new kind of pulsation, a new vibration you knew nothing of—a new nerve you will find, the nerve of life. Somewhere something quivers; a bud, a sprout strains to emerge; something is eager to burst forth; a spring longs to break. When you sense it there, try to recognize it daily.
As when one has found treasure, he opens the safe in solitude each day, looks, closes the safe, returns. As with a diamond in the pocket—he talks with others, and now and then slides a hand into the pocket to feel the diamond, and withdraws. In this way, whenever in the twenty-four hours there is a chance, go near that pulsation, that inner center where things are trembling and struggling to move toward a new direction of life; where consciousness is trying to surpass the human; where consciousness wishes to transcend—breaking walls, breaking shells, rising above, to go elsewhere. Recognize that place. Then, whatever is happening—whether in the shop or the marketplace—you will find chance and slip within, recognize that place and return. A loving care, a tender guarding will arise—that within there is also a place, a temple.
As this guarding grows, this attention, this watchfulness, there will begin the experience of a very clear flame, a very clear flowing of awakened power. Slowly you will sense by what path the wave can move onward, and how it can reach where union happens—where there is union with that for which our very life-breath yearns; where we attain that which we have sought for who knows how many births, through how many journeys—called, cried for, yet caught no glimpse. The wonder is, it is with us!
I have heard: a man set out to find his horse and asked everywhere, Where is my horse? Where is my horse? He was riding the horse! But all those he asked thought: it cannot be this horse, for he is sitting upon it. It must be some other horse. They said, We have not seen it; it did not pass this way. He would go another road and ask, Where is my horse? And those he met thought: he does not mean the horse he rides, for of that there is no need to ask; it must be another horse. They told other ways: look that road; not this one.
You go on the road of wealth asking, Where is bliss? Those on that road will say, We did not find it—but try another way, the road of fame perhaps. On the road of fame others will say, Not here—try knowledge. There are a thousand roads. Man wanders, wanders. And after each life he forgets that there has been enough wandering—and a new wandering begins. The same mistake again and again. And slowly we forget that what we seek—perhaps we do not find it precisely because we are riding upon it! Perhaps we are that!
And I tell you: we are that which we are seeking! We are what we ask for! We are what we call for! So long as we call and search and run, we will never get it. So much calling will be wasted, so much running vain.
If it is to be attained, first this must be found: what am I! And the first point of this “what I am” is where we are now. We are not on Paramatma yet; we are not on Ram; we are on kama, on sex. From there we must begin. From there the search must start.
So today I give you this second sutra: within yourself, find that pulsing point where the whole center is. For twenty-four hours remember where. Once it begins to appear, even remembering is not needed.
As a village woman comes from the well with a pot of water, talking to her friends, not even touching the pot—yet the pot remains balanced. Something within holds it steady. Holds it! The hands do not hold it; she gossips loudly, walks along. You may think she has completely left the pot. She has not left it at all. Her entire consciousness, her whole attention, holds the pot.
So too one does everything, while within the whole attention holds that point. And as soon as someone holds that point attentively, the revolution begins. The moment one attentively holds that point, the upward journey begins. And the moment one turns one’s back to that point, the downward journey begins. The downward journey of sex goes into darkness, ignorance, unawareness, stupor. The upward journey of sex goes into alertness, awakening, awareness. Only this one thing—are you aware toward that point, or unconscious? If unconscious, you will drift downward and downward. If aware, you stand at the first door above.
How the further journey happens—we shall speak of it tomorrow morning.
One small story, and I will finish.
Near a fakir’s ashram some merchants would pass by, going to sell their wares in a distant market. On the way they thought to tether their camels, visit the fakir’s ashram. It was morning; the first rays had spread. They reached the ashram and were astonished. A strange ashram! People were dancing, leaping, laughing; someone played the veena. Some said, What kind of ashram is this? What kind of practice? What are these people doing? Some said, We have never seen such an ashram. Come, let us return—this is deception. Merrymaking, music and color!
But the fakir said nothing; he smiled. His disciples kept dancing. The merchants went away.
A year later they returned. They thought, Let us glance at that ashram again—what is its condition now? Nearing the ashram, they found deep silence. Peeking inside, all those whom they had seen dancing were sitting under trees with eyes closed, lost who knows where. Some said, Now it is somewhat right. This we can understand. This seems good.
The fakir again smiled. He still said nothing. They went away.
The third year they again went on business. Let us see that ashram, they thought.
First time—dance and color. Second time—utterly silent sitting. This time—there was profound emptiness. Looking within, no one was there. Only the Guru sat quietly beneath a bush.
They said, Ah! Where have all the disciples gone?
The Guru said, Now I will tell you. You asked again and again; I remained silent. For wayfarers it is not possible to tell everything. Nor is it to their benefit. And those who blurt out things on the road do not seem very wise. Still, since you have come the third time, I will tell you. The first time my disciples were where all men are—and the journey can only begin from where one is. If I had seated them solemnly, that solemnity would have been false—as the solemnity of serious people often is false. Within sits the same man, the one who wants to dance and leap; above they wear long faces. Inside, the same commotion continues. I can begin the journey only from where a man is. They had come—they were here, in this world of merriment. It was necessary to begin here. I first taught them to be aware amidst dance and song—to dance and sing, and become aware within at which point the pulsation of their life is.
They said, Oh! We had thought, what a ruckus! What kind of ashram! What kind of Guru!
The fakir laughed. He said, Only the foolish decide so quickly. In truth, the wise do not decide about others at all; they decide only about themselves.
Still, they asked: When we came the second time, what had happened?
The Guru said: They had recognized their point, and that point became so flavorful that dancing became meaningless. That point began to give such music that the outer music—the veena—was abandoned. They went so deep into inner bliss that they said, We now want to be silent outside. Conversion happened. We said, If you want to be silent, be so. They fell silent. When you passed the second time, they were at the second stage.
They asked, Where are they now?
The Guru said: Now the matter is complete. They reached where, having arrived, there remains no further journey. I bid them farewell. They are gone. I sit here alone. Now I wait again for those who will come dancing—so that I may lead them from the body’s dance to that where the dance of Paramatma is.
But every journey begins from where we are. And where we are, we want to hide; and what we are not, we want to claim. Then difficulties begin. And the whole human race is trapped in this: man is an animal, and he thinks himself Paramatma.
Man can be Paramatma. Remember: can be—not is. He who believes “I am,” his journey ends here.
Man is an animal—it hurts to accept. But what is true should not be painful to accept. We stand at the animal point; from there we must journey—and reach where Paramatma is.
How this journey can be, its third stage, I will speak about tomorrow evening.
I am very obliged by the love and silence with which you have listened. And in the end I bow to the Paramatma dwelling in all. Please accept my pranam.