Jin Khoja Tin Paiyan #8

First, this: body and soul are not two at the deepest level; their separation is only on the surface. And the day the whole truth is seen, it does not appear that body and soul are separate—rather, it appears that the body is that part of the soul which comes within the grasp of the senses, and the soul is that part of the body which remains beyond the grasp of the senses.

Body and soul—two ends of the same truth
The invisible end of the body is the soul, and the visible end of the soul is the body. This becomes known only in the very last experience. Here is the irony: ordinarily, we all live assuming that body and soul are one and the same. But that is a misunderstanding; we have no clue of the soul—we take the body to be the soul. Yet even behind this misunderstanding, the same truth is at work: somewhere, hidden in the corner of our life-breath, there is an intuition that existence is one.

That intuition of oneness has produced two kinds of errors. One is the spiritualist who says: the body is not, only the soul is. The other is the materialist, the Charvaka, the Epicurean, who says: only the body is, there is no soul. Both are distortions of that deep intuition. And every so-called ignorant person also feels “I am the body.” But the moment the inner journey begins, this first belief breaks, and you come to know that body is one thing and soul another. As soon as you realize there is soul, you see that body and soul are distinct. But this is a middle truth. Go deeper and deeper, and in the ultimate experience you see: there is no “other.” Body and soul are not two; they are two forms of one reality.

Like me and my two hands. From outside, if someone says the right and left hands are one, he is wrong; they are different. Come closer and you will see: the right hurts while the left doesn’t; the right can be cut off while the left remains—so they’re not one. Enter into me and you will discover: I am one, of whom there is a left hand and a right; when the left breaks, it is I who feel the pain, and when the right rises, it is I who rise.

So in the final realization, body and soul are not two; they are two aspects, two hands of the same truth. I said this so you understand that the journey can begin from either side.

If someone starts from the body and goes deeper, deeper, deeper, he will arrive at the soul. If someone grabs my left hand and keeps moving along it, sooner or later my right hand will also be in his grasp. Or one may begin from the other side—from the soul—and the body will be found.

But to begin from the soul is very difficult—because we have no direct sense of it. We stand on the body, so our journey will naturally begin with the body. There are methods that start directly with the soul, but generally they are for very few; once in a hundred thousand may be able to follow them. Most will need to begin with the body, because that is where we stand. And the body’s preparation for this journey is kundalini. The focal source of the deepest bodily experiences is kundalini. In truth, the body is far more than we and the physiologist take it to be.

This fan is running. If we take it down and dismantle it completely, we will not find electricity anywhere inside it. A very intelligent man might even declare there is no such thing as electricity in the fan. Cut it piece by piece—you’ll never find electricity. And yet the fan runs by electricity and stops the moment the current is cut.

So the physiologist studies the body by cutting and dissecting; he does not find kundalini anywhere—and he will not. Still, the entire body runs on the electric force of kundalini. This cannot be known by external analysis; analysis disperses it instantly. It can be known only by inner experience. That is to say, there are two ways to know the body: from the outside, as a physiologist does, and from the inside, as the one living in the body knows it.

When someone begins to know his body from within—note that we usually even know our own body from the outside; if I know my left hand, it is because my eyes see it, that is the physiologist’s knowledge—close the eyes and sense the inner feel of the left hand; that is my experience.

If one goes to know one’s body from within, very soon one reaches the wellspring from which all the body’s powers arise. The dormant power sleeping in that reservoir is called kundalini. Then one experiences that everything spreads from there throughout the body—like a lamp whose light fills the room; investigate the light and you arrive at the lamp from which all rays spread.

The reservoir of life-energy
“Kund” means the search for that point within the body from which life-energy spreads throughout. Certainly it has a center. No energy exists without a center. The sun may be millions of miles away, but a ray in your hand implies a source somewhere from which it travels. No force can be centerless. As a circumference implies a center, so does any force.

Your body is a bundle of energy; this needs no proof. It rises, sits, walks, sleeps. Nor does that energy always act the same way; sometimes it is stronger, sometimes weaker. In anger you may lift a stone you couldn’t move otherwise. In fear you may run faster than in any Olympic race.

This shows that your energy varies; there are gradations—sometimes more, sometimes less. It also shows you have a reservoir: sometimes energy pours forth when needed, otherwise it remains hidden. There is a center from which you receive energy—both for ordinary and extraordinary tasks. Yet you never empty that center, nor do you ever use it fully.

Researchers say even the most extraordinary person uses no more than fifteen percent of his energy. The “great man” as we call him, does not go beyond that. The ordinary person gets by on two or three percent; ninety-eight percent lies unused. Hence there is no difference in potential—only in use. The power a genius employs is also present in the most average mind—merely unused, never called, never challenged, never awakened. He becomes content with his minimum, mistaking it for the maximum.

We live with our minimum line as if it were the ultimate boundary. Hence, in moments of crisis, even the most ordinary person may display extraordinary capacity. Often, only in crisis do we glimpse what was within us.

There is a center where all this energy is stored, hidden, asleep—like a seed that contains everything and can manifest. This is the kund.

Dormant power in the unconscious
“Kund” is a very significant word, with several meanings.
- First: where not even the slightest ripple is rising—because a ripple would mean activity. Kund means: utterly rippleless—everything asleep, no vibration, all in latency.
- Second: dormant, yet capable of becoming active at any moment; not dead. The reservoir is full, not dry. It can awaken at any moment, but is asleep.

Therefore, we may not even suspect what sleeps within us. We will know only what we awaken—understand this well. Before awakening, we cannot know what lies within. You will know to the extent that it awakens. Whatever portion of your energy becomes active, that much comes into consciousness; the rest remains in the unconscious, asleep.

Thus even the greatest person does not know until he becomes great. Neither Mahavira, nor Buddha, nor Jesus, nor Krishna knew beforehand; the day it happens, that day they know. That is why, when it happens, it appears as grace: “From where did this gift come? Who gave it?” The closest antecedent is assumed to be the cause—if there is a master, they say it came from the master; if not, then from God’s image. Whatever precedes is taken as the cause.

In truth, we mistake the antecedent for the cause.

I was reading a story: two peasants rode a train for the first time. It was both their birthdays, in a hill village. The villagers wanted to gift them something; a new train had started, so they gave them tickets to take a ride. They boarded, curious about everything. A vendor came selling soda; they said, “Let’s buy one bottle and share it. If it’s good, we’ll buy another.” The first man drank half; just then the train entered a tunnel. The second man grabbed the bottle: “Don’t finish it—save half for me.” The first shouted, “Don’t touch it! I have been struck blind! Don’t touch it—it has blinded me!” The train had entered the tunnel. The antecedent seemed the cause.

So we assume causes, but do not know where the energy truly comes from; we don’t know how much more can come, or how much is possible.

A wave rising from the reservoir
Whatever part of the dormant kund awakens is kundalini. Kund is the unconscious; kundalini is consciousness. Kund names the sleeping power; kundalini names the awakened portion. It is not the whole reservoir, but a small wave that rises from it. This journey thus has a double search. The kundalini that has awakened in you is merely the news of a source where infinitely more sleeps. If one ray has come, countless rays are possible.

One way is to awaken kundalini so you come to full awareness of your energy. By awakening this power, you reach those points in the body from which entry becomes easy into the invisible—into the soul. You arrive at the gates through which you can pass into the unseen.

This too is essential to understand: whatever you do, your energy acts through certain doors. If your ears are damaged, energy will reach there and return, but you will not hear; eventually energy will stop coming there, because energy flows where it can function. Conversely, a deaf person, by intense resolve, may learn to “hear” through a finger; even today there are people who can see through other parts of the body. What you call “eye” is but a specialized skin. From aeons man has seen through this spot—that’s all. The first day a being saw from this organ it was a coincidence; he could have seen from elsewhere. Other creatures “see” from different parts; their eyes have shifted accordingly. Some creatures have a true eye and a false eye—to mislead attackers. A common housefly has a thousand-faceted eye; fishes see with the tail because danger approaches from behind.

Study the eyes of all creatures and you will see: there is nothing inevitable about the eye being exactly here, or the ear there. They could be elsewhere. They are here because humanity has reiterated them here ad infinitum; the memory-pattern has stabilized.

If any one of our senses is lost, the world it opens is closed. Lose the eyes and light can never be experienced, no matter how excellent your ears or hands.

Knocking on new doors
When kundalini begins to awaken, it strikes new doors that are not ordinary—you begin to know things these eyes and ears could not reveal. Properly speaking, it is your inner senses that begin to stir. Even now it is kundalini’s energy that runs the outer senses; only a very small portion is needed for them. Increase that energy even a little, and you have surplus force to knock on new doors.

Like water flowing: a small quantity carves one channel; suddenly increase the volume and new streams break open because the old channel cannot carry it all.

The deep physiological meaning of awakening kundalini is this: have so much energy that your old doors can no longer carry it. Then inevitably it must strike new doors, and new senses will awaken—telepathy, clairvoyance; you begin to see and hear things not of the physical eye and ear; you experience phenomena without any outer sense participating. New inner senses become active. At their deepest fruition, you begin to sense the invisible realm within your body—the subtlest, unseen end we call soul. Thus, with kundalini awakened, new possibilities open in you. The work starts with the body.

A unique experiment: immersing consciousness in the reservoir
There is a second approach. Generally, people have worked at awakening kundalini. But remember: kundalini is not the whole reservoir. A few have worked differently—not to raise a small current, but to plunge one’s entire consciousness into the kund. Not to lift a little power and use it, but to immerse oneself completely. Then no new senses arise, no extrasensory experiences happen, and even the experience of the soul disappears—there is a direct experience of the divine.

Those who awaken kundalini first experience the soul, along with the sense that my soul is separate from yours. Such people become pluralists of souls: many souls. Those who plunge into the kund say: there is no individual soul at all—there is only the Supreme; not many, but one. For in diving into the kund you do not enter “your” reservoir—you enter the collective reservoir at once.

Your kund and mine are not separate. Hence it is infinitely powerful; no matter how much you draw, nothing is diminished. You may fill your pot and I mine; your pot’s water is distinct from mine. We have drawn from the ocean. But if a man drowns in the ocean, he says: there is no “my pot” and “your pot,” no one’s water is separate; the ocean is one. What you carried home is also a part of this and will return—sun will turn it to vapor, clouds will form—it all returns; it never truly left.

Those who awakened kundalini had extrasensory, psychic experiences, and the experience of the soul—which is only a fragment of the divine, a corner from which you touch the whole.

Like touching the ocean from a shore: I touch the same ocean that you might touch thousands of miles away. But how will I accept that you touch the same ocean? You touch your shore; I touch mine—then “my” ocean becomes the Indian Ocean, yours the Atlantic, another the Pacific. We won’t touch the Ocean; we will have our own seas and shores, drawing dividing lines.

The soul is touching the divine from one corner. For that, a small power needs to awaken. Therefore, on this path, one day even the soul must be dropped, otherwise it becomes a barrier; it is not the whole. Then one must leap into the kund. This is easier—often the long path is the easy path, and the nearest path is the hardest. There are reasons.

If I want to see my own face, I must still use another—the mirror. It seems a pointless detour: my face goes to the mirror and returns, then I can see. Yet to see it directly—though nearest—is the hardest. Do you follow?

The joy of knowing and losing oneself
Raising a small current of kundalini is a longer journey: the world of the inner senses opens, you reach the soul, and from there you must still leap—but it becomes very simple. The one who attains the soul and its bliss is then called by that very bliss: now lose yourself and attain the supreme bliss.

There is a joy in knowing oneself, a joy in possessing oneself, and a supreme joy in losing oneself. Because once you know yourself, only one pain remains: that “I am.” All other pains melt away, but this remains. Even my being begins to feel unnecessary. Then you will leap: “I have known being; now I want to know non-being. I have known light; now I want to know darkness.” Light, however vast, has a boundary; darkness is boundless. Being, however significant, has a limit; non-being has none.

Thus Buddha was not understood. People asked him, “Will we survive there or not?” He said, “How can ‘you’ survive? It is you that must be dropped.” They asked, “At least in liberation we will exist?” Buddha said, “How can you? When craving, sin, sorrow are gone, one sorrow remains—being itself. Even being becomes an offense.” When nothing remains to do, doing ends, then what will you do with being? Being itself starts to chafe; even that should go.

So he said: nothing remains—like a lamp going out. People kept asking till his death, “What happens to the Tathagata after death?” He said: “When it is finished, what remains? Like a lamp extinguished—gone is gone.”

Thus the attainment of the soul is but a stage, a preparation to lose even the soul. But this way is easier. For one who hasn’t even dropped desire, to say directly “dive into the kund, lose yourself” is impossible. He will say, “I have many tasks yet.”

Why do we fear losing ourselves? Because there is much to do; if I lose myself, who will do it? A house half-built—let me finish it first. But by then other tasks will be half-finished.

The urge to complete things keeps the “I” going. As long as that urge remains, telling someone to drop the soul is futile. It is the nearest, but not possible. The man who has not yet lost desire—how will he lose the soul? When desire drops, one day he agrees to drop even the soul—“What is the use of it now?”

Do you follow? I mean: tell one who has not yet lost suffering to drop bliss—he will call you mad. But when suffering is gone and only bliss remains, what will you do with even bliss? Then you are ready to drop that too. The merging into the Supreme happens then.

It can be direct; one can go straight to the kund. But agreeing is difficult. Slowly-slowly, readiness comes. Desires fall, tendencies fall, actions fall; all that supported your “I” falls away; finally only you remain without foundation or support. Then you say, “Why preserve even this? Let this go too.” Then you sink into the kund. To sink into the kund is nirvana.

If one wants to dive directly, kundalini does not come in the way. Hence some paths have not spoken of it; they speak of direct immersion. But in my experience, that is rarely possible; one or two individuals perhaps—but that changes nothing for the many. We must take the longer road. Often, to reach your own home, you must knock on others’ doors; to recognize your own face, you must recognize many faces; to love yourself, you must love many. The straight way would be to love yourself—who hinders that? Or to walk straight into your own house. But it doesn’t happen so.

In truth, until we wander through others’ homes, we cannot recognize our own. Until we seek love from others and love others, we do not learn that the real question is to love oneself. Only then does it become clear.

So when I said kundalini is the body’s preparation, I meant: a preparation for entering the bodiless, into the soul. With the energy you presently have, you cannot enter the soul; it is spent in your daily chores—indeed, even there it is not enough; we get tired. The flame burns too dimly. With that, you cannot be carried across.

Energy is infinite; awaken it
This is why sannyas arose—to stop daily work, since we have so little energy; if we must set out on another journey, then shut the shop, leave the market, quit the job.

But I consider that a mistake. The little energy you save from ordinary work will be spent in the saving itself. It often takes more energy to hold back anger than to express it; more to avoid a fight than to fight.

So I don’t consider the miser’s path right—that sannyas which says, “We’ll save from here and there.” My view: it won’t work by saving. Awaken more! There is abundance—why save? Awaken more and spend more. You cannot exhaust what you have—so why worry about saving?

A man fears: “If I love my wife, how will I love God?” He has such a tiny quantity of love that it will be used up. He says, “Save it.” But in saving he must struggle—energy is spent. And with that tiny energy which wasn’t enough even to reach your wife fully, will you love the infinite? The bridge you built was too short even to reach her heart—how will it reach the divine? It is madness.

It is not a question of saving; it is a question of awakening more. There is such an infinite energy within that it defies measure. Once it begins to awaken, each awakening opens the possibility of more. Once the spring breaks forth, it is endless. You cannot exhaust it; there will never come a moment when you can say, “Nothing remains to awaken.”

The possibility of awakening is infinite; however much you awaken, more becomes possible. And as you awaken more, you gain the power to awaken still more. When you have an inner affluence, a surplus, only then can you risk spending it on the unknown. Do you see?

In the outer world too, affluence tempts exploration. A man with surplus money thinks, “Let’s go to the moon.” It may be pointless, but there is no harm—he has surplus to lose. When you lack surplus, you spend inch by inch; you never step beyond the known. To enter the unknown, you need excess.

Kundalini fills you with surplus. Then your old channels cannot carry it—like a small river trying to hold the ocean; it disappears. Your habitual pathways of anger, sex, and so on will suddenly vanish. The day surplus energy arrives, those banks and channels are swept away. You’ll find everything different. Where is all that I was miserly preserving—practicing celibacy, suppressing anger? All gone—because those streams are no more; the whole ocean is here. When you have no way to spend it outwardly, a new journey begins on its own. Energy must flow.

So awaken it once. Then your daily doors become meaningless; the unknown, unopened doors crack for the first time, and energy thrusts through them. Extrasensory experiences begin. As soon as those doors open, you begin to sense the bodiless end of your body—the soul.

Thus, kundalini is the body’s preparation for entry into the bodiless. In that sense I said it.

The ascent and descent of kundalini

In truth, sinking into the kund is neither descending nor ascending. In sinking into the kund, both these notions disappear. It is not going up or coming down; it is dissolving, ending. When a drop falls into the ocean, it neither descends nor ascends. Yes, when a drop dries in the sun’s rays, it ascends toward the sky; and when, cooled in the cloud, it falls to the earth, it descends. But when it reaches the ocean there is no ascending or descending—there is sinking, dissolving, dying.

So this talk of going up and coming down—of descent—is meant in quite a different sense. It means that the energy we raise from the kund sometimes has to be sent back to the kund. We do raise this energy, and many times we have to return it as well. There can be many reasons. The chief reason is that often more energy awakens than you are ready for; it must be sent back, otherwise there can be danger. Only as much energy as you can bear should be allowed to remain. We do have capacities—to bear pleasure, to bear pain, to bear power. If a shock far beyond our capacity strikes us, the structure of our personality can crack. That would not be beneficial. Hence, many times such energy arises as must be returned.

But in the method I am speaking of, this will never be needed. It depends on the method. There are methods—called sudden-enlightenment methods—that can arouse instantaneous energy. In such methods there is always danger, because the energy may be more than you were ready for. The voltage may be so high that your bulb goes out, the fuse blows, your fan burns, your motor catches fire. The method I am speaking of first creates the vessel, the capacity within you; it does not arouse the energy first. It creates the receptivity first.

Assistance from others in sadhana
Understand it this way: if a great dam suddenly breaks, its waters will cause tremendous damage; but by drawing canals from it, the very same water can be directed and regulated to serve our needs.

There is a remarkable fact: in his adolescence, Krishnamurti was taken through all the practices of kundalini by certain special people of the Theosophical Society. Many experiments were conducted on him, of which he retained no clear memory; he has no awareness of what happened. He only became aware when the ocean poured into that canal. Therefore he has no sense of any preparation—and so he will not accept that any preparation is needed. But great preparation was done on him, perhaps as has never been done on anyone else on this earth. Many people have prepared, but for themselves. This was the first time others prepared someone else—him.

That preparation was done by others, and it was undertaken for a very great event. That event, too, was missed. The intent was to allow another great soul to enter. Krishnamurti was to be used only as a vehicle; that is why he was prepared, why a channel was dug, why the power, the energy, was aroused. But that was only the preliminary work. Krishnamurti himself was not the goal. He was to be used as a means toward a higher purpose—to make space within him for another soul. That did not happen. It did not happen because, when the waters finally arrived, Krishnamurti refused to be a means; he refused to be a vehicle for someone else.

This danger was foreseen; it is always there. That is why such a method is generally not used. The danger is always there: when a person reaches the point where he himself can become the very end, why would he become a means for someone else? At the last moment he may refuse. It is as if I give you the key to my house so that, because a guest is arriving tomorrow, you can prepare the house. But once I hand you the key and you become the owner, when tomorrow’s guest is to be admitted you can simply refuse: “I am the owner now, the key is with me.” And the key was fashioned by someone else, the house was built by someone else; you don’t know who made the house or when and how the key was forged. Yet because you possess the key and know how to open the door, the matter is finished.

Preparation first, attainment later
Such an incident has happened. Some people can be prepared; some are born prepared from past lives. But this is not an ordinary affair. Ordinarily, each one has to prepare oneself. And it is proper that the experiment be such in which preparation comes first and the event happens afterward. As much capacity as you create, that much water flows in. Power should never be aroused beyond your capacity. In many experiments where this was ignored, people went deranged, many went mad. A great fear of religion arose because of such experiments.

So there can be two kinds of experiments; this is not very difficult to understand.

In America, in the way they have organized electricity, there is one arrangement whose consequences I often point out—such a situation can occur within as well. Their arrangement is that if this village has a larger power quota than it needs tonight, whatever remains unused should automatically flow to other villages; nothing surplus should lie idle here—let it serve elsewhere. Today a factory that ran till last evening is shut due to a strike. The power it would have used will remain unused here, while elsewhere a factory may be in need and cannot be supplied. So a fully automatic system was created so that across the whole zone electricity keeps flowing, shifting instantly from wherever there is a surplus to wherever there is a need.

Some three or four years ago, for eight to twelve hours, the whole of America went dark. It happened because of that very system. Power failed in one town, and a reverse flow began. The channel that usually carried away surplus began, when one town went dark, to pull power toward that vacuum. That town had a certain capacity and was entitled to a certain supply; all the interlinked towns were related, and the entire grid surged in that direction. The surge was so great that all the fuses in that town blew, throwing the neighboring towns into trouble as well. The entire zonal arrangement collapsed at once. For about twelve hours America suddenly returned two thousand years—to total darkness. Everyone, wherever they were, was in darkness and all activity stopped. And for the first time they realized that what we design for one purpose can also produce the opposite effect. If each town had a separate system, such a thing could never have happened. In India such a complete, nationwide outage is unlikely; in America it can happen, because everything is entirely interconnected, currents shifting from one town to another all the time—so the danger is always there.

Within a human being there are arrangements exactly like electrical currents. And these currents can, if they flow toward you in excess of your capacity—and there are methods by which they can be made to flow—overwhelm you. You are sitting here among fifty people; there are methods by which, if you wish, the electrical energies of all fifty can be made to flow toward you. The fifty will fall into a swoon, almost faint, and you will become the intense center of energy. But there are dangers. The flow can become so great you cannot contain it. And the opposite can also occur: through the very channel by which energy came to you, all your energy can be drained away to the other side. All these experiments have been tried.

So regarding what is called descent: if ever an excess of your own energy rises upward beyond measure, there are methods to bring it back. But in the method I am speaking of, even that is not needed; there is no such requirement. As much receptivity as you create within, exactly that much energy will awaken within. First the space is made, then the power comes. You will never be in a position where you have to send anything back. Yes, one day you yourself will return—that is another matter. One day, knowing all, you will yourself take the plunge into the pool—that is another matter.

And these words have also been used in other senses. For example, Sri Aurobindo uses them very differently. We can conceive divine power in two ways: either as above us somewhere in the sky—in any sense of “above”; or as deeper than us, in the depths, the underworld. As far as the cosmos is concerned, “above” and “below” are meaningless; they are only our ways of thinking. You call this roof “above,” but there is no real “above.” If we drill a hole straight through the earth and it opens in America, someone looking through from there will see this same roof as below our heads. We will appear upside down, all doing headstands, and this roof will seem to be beneath our heads. It is the same place—it depends entirely on the point of view.

Just as our notions of east and west are fictitious. What east? What west? Walk eastward long enough and you arrive in the west. Walk westward long enough and you arrive in the east. If by walking west you eventually reach the east, what meaning does “west” have? It is purely relative—meaning, it has no inherent meaning. It is a working convenience so we can keep accounts: here is east, there is west. But where does east begin? From Calcutta? Rangoon? Tokyo? Where does west begin and where does it end? It neither begins nor ends. These are makeshift notions that help us coordinate with one another.

Exactly so, “above–below” is a working convention in another dimension. East–west is a horizontal convention; above–below is a vertical one. Nothing is truly above and nothing below, because the universe has no roof and no bottom. Hence all talk of above and below is meaningless. But these working assumptions slip into our religious concepts as well.

Some experience God as above. Then, when power comes, it comes down, descends to us. Some experience God as below, in the roots. Then, when power comes, it rises up to us. But ultimately this has no real meaning; where we place God is only a convenience. Even so, if one must choose for the sake of practice, I consider rising rather than descending to be more helpful; energy rising from within you is more supportive than energy descending. There are reasons: when you hold the notion of rising, the question of lifting arises—then you must do something. With descent, only prayer remains, and you can do nothing much. If it has to come from above, we can only fold our hands and pray, “O God, descend!”

The two dimensions of religion—meditation and prayer
Thus two kinds of religion arose in the world: religions of meditation and religions of prayer. The religions of prayer are those that experience God as above. What else can we do? We cannot bring him down, for if we could, we would have to go up that high—and how shall we go? If we reach that height we ourselves would be God. We cannot go there; we remain where we are and cry out in prayer, “O God, come down!”

But those religions and understandings that felt God must be raised from below—that something is asleep in our very roots and, if we do something, it will rise—did not become religions of prayer but of meditation. Thus the distinction between meditation and prayer rests on this above–below notion. The religion of prayer places God above; the religion of meditation places God in the roots and raises him from there.

And note this well: the religions of prayer are slowly losing ground; they are fading away. They have no future. The possibility of religions of meditation grows deeper every day; they have a great future.

So I would prefer that we understand it as from below to above. There are other meanings too. The notion is relative, so I have no difficulty if someone wishes to place God above; I do not object. But I think you will face difficulty in practice. As I said: by walking east you eventually reach west. Even so, if we wish to go west, we do not start walking east; we set out toward the west. The notion may be meaningless, yet if we wish to reach the west, we begin by walking west. Yes, by walking east you may in time reach the west—but that would be a needlessly long route. You understand me?

So it makes a difference for the devotee and the seeker. The devotee will place God above and wait with folded hands; the seeker will place God below and gird his loins to awaken it.

There are further implications worth noting. In fact, when we place God below, then what we call our lower instincts also become suffused with his presence; nothing in our consciousness remains base. Because when God himself is below, then even what we call the lowest contains him. And he will rise from there too; if sex is there, he will rise from there as well. There can be no place where he is not—down and down, even in hell if there is such a place, he is present.

But the moment we place him above, condemnation begins. Whatever is below gets condemned, because God is not there. And unconsciously a self-humiliation begins: we are low and he is high. The consequences are harmful—psychologically harmful.

Meditation-centered religion is more effective
And when you must stand in your full strength, it is proper that the power come from below, because it will strengthen your legs. If it comes from above it will only touch your head. The matter must reach your roots. And whatever comes from above will always feel alien, foreign.

Therefore those who have relied on prayer can never truly accept that God and we are one. They cannot accept it. This is why, in Islam, there has been a relentless opposition to anyone declaring “I am God.” For how can there be identity between the One above and we, who are as low as creeping insects on the earth? Thus they will cut off Mansur’s head, they will kill Sarmad. For, in their eyes, there is no greater heresy than this claim: that you say, “I am God.” Nothing could be a greater blasphemy—for where is He above, and where are you below? You cannot join your identity with him.

There is a reason for this: if we place him above and ourselves below, we become two at once. Hence Sufis could never be fully acceptable to orthodox Islam, because the Sufi claims, “He and I are one.”

But we and he can be one only when he comes from below, because we are below. Only when he rises from the earth, not descends from the sky, can we and he be one. The moment we place God above, earthly life becomes condemned as sin; birth becomes the fruit of sin. Place him below, and earthly life becomes a joy—not the fruit of sin but God’s grace. And in every thing, no matter how dark, a ray of his light will be tangibly present. However bad a person may be, however demonic, at the innermost core he will still carry that presence.

Therefore I prefer that we understand it as a rising from below to above. For one who knows, there is no difference—he will say both “above” and “below” are useless notions. But since we do not yet know and must travel, it is proper to adopt what makes the journey easier.

Thus, for the seeker, it is appropriate to understand that power will rise from below and move upward; the journey is upward. Therefore those who accepted the upward journey chose fire as the symbol, because fire constantly moves upward. The lamp, the flame—always rising; they made it a symbol of the divine. Deep in our minds fire has become the symbol of God for this very reason: whatever you do to it, it goes upward. And the higher it rises, the sooner it vanishes; for a short distance it is visible, then it becomes invisible. So it is with the seeker: he goes upward, visible for a while, then disappears. Therefore I would emphasize ascent—not descent.

Ask just one more, then we will get up.
The awakening of energy

No, no—fatigue does not mean being without energy. In truth, when you tire yourself out—what do I mean by “yourself”? By “yourself” I mean those doors and gateways, those senses through which your energy flows in its daily routine—the setup that you are right now, the you that you presently are. I am not talking about the you that you can become.

So when you tire yourself out, two simultaneous events occur. On the one hand, as you exhaust yourself, all your senses, your mind, your body get tired. They refuse to carry any kind of energy; they decline. In fatigue you show no readiness to bear any energy; you say, “I’m tired right now.”

Thus this experiment tires your body, your mind, your senses; and at the same time it strikes your kundalini—there energy is stirred. Here you tire; there energy awakens—both happen together. Do you follow? They happen together: as you tire, power is aroused. And you are no longer fit to carry that power through the old channels: your eyes, if they want to see, say, “We’re tired; we don’t feel like seeing.” Your mind, if it wants to think, says, “I’m tired; I don’t feel like thinking.” Your legs, if they want to walk, say, “We’re tired; we can’t walk.” So if there is to be a journey now, it will have to be a journey within without legs; and if there is to be seeing, you will have to see without eyes—because the eyes are tired. Do you understand what I mean?

When your system, your personality, is tired, it refuses to do anything. Yet the energy has awakened and wants to do something. Immediately it will knock at those doors that are not tired, the doors that are never fatigued within you, always ready to bear the current—but they never got a chance because you never gave them one; you yourself were so dominant that you employed all the energy through the outer. Those doors will say, “No, not here.” The energy that is awakening, these doors will tell it, “No, we have no desire to see.” So when the eye refuses to see and the mind refuses the desire to see, what will happen to the energy that has awakened to see? You will begin to see in another dimension; a completely new part of you will open. Those very psychic centers of seeing will begin to open. You will start seeing things you have never seen before, and from a place within from which you have never seen before. But it never had the opportunity; you never gave it a chance. Now the opportunity will be created for it.

Activation of the suprasensory centers
Hence my insistence on tiring. Tire the body, tire the mind—tire what you presently are—so that what you also are but do not yet know can become active within you. And when energy awakens, it immediately says, “Give me work.” You will have to give work to your being. In fact, the energy itself will find its work. Even if your ears are tired, when energy awakens and wants to hear, it will hear the nada, the inner sound. For those sounds your physical ears are not needed. Your eyes are not needed to see a certain light. A fragrance will begin to arise for which your nose is not required.

Within you the subtler senses—or suprasenses, whatever name we prefer—will become active. And each of our senses has a paired suprasense. There is one ear that hears outwardly, and there is another ear within you that hears inwardly. But it never had the chance. So when your outer ear is tired and energy comes to the door of hearing, and the ear says, “I don’t want to hear; I have no desire to hear,” what will that energy do? It will activate your second ear, the one that can hear and has never heard.

Therefore you will hear such things, see such things, that if you tell someone he will say, “You’re crazy! Such a thing can’t be. You’ve fallen into some illusion; perhaps you saw a dream.” But to you it will be more clear than any outer veena has ever been. The inner veena will be so distinct that you will say, “How can I deny this? If this is false, then what of the outer veena—it would be utterly false!”

So the tiring of your senses is initially necessary for the opening of new doors in your being. Once they open, then it is no issue—because then you have comparison: if there is to be seeing, then see within; it is so blissful—why go on looking outside idly? But for now you have no comparison; as of now, if you are to see, you can only see outside—there is only one option. Once your inner eye also begins to see, then the options are clear before you. Whenever the desire to see arises, you will prefer to see within. Why miss the opportunity? What is the point of looking outside?

It is mentioned in Rabiya’s life: at dusk the sun was setting and she was sitting inside her hut. A fakir named Hasan came to meet her. The sun was going down and the evening was very beautiful. Hasan shouted to her, “Rabiya, what are you doing inside? The evening is so beautiful; I have never seen such a sunset; a sun like this will not be seen again—come out!” Rabiya replied, “Madman, how long will you go on looking at the outer sun? I tell you, come inside! For we are seeing the One who made the sun; and we are seeing suns that are yet unborn and will someday be. Better you come inside!”

Hasan could not understand what she was saying. But that woman was extraordinary. Among the few women who have really done something in this world, Rabiya is one. Yet Hasan did not understand. He kept saying to her, “Look, the evening is slipping away!” And Rabiya kept saying, “Madman, you will be the one to miss the evening; over here within, much is being missed.”

They were speaking on two entirely different planes, because two different senses were being referred to. But if you do not know of the second sense, then the inner has no meaning at all; only the outer has meaning. In this sense I have said: if the senses tire, it is auspicious.

Tiring does not mean lack of energy.

No, not at all. The energy is awakening—the energy is awakening; the whole work is going on precisely to awaken the energy. Yes, the senses are getting tired. The senses are not energy; they are only the doors through which energy flows. This door is not me; I am other than it. I go in and out through this door. The door is getting tired, and the door is saying: Please, don’t go out through us—we are very tired. But where will you go? In the end you will have to remain inside. The door is saying: We are very tired now; please don’t go outside, because if you go, we will have to get back to work. The eye is saying: We are tired—don’t travel this way now.
The senses are tiring. And their tiredness, primarily, is a great ally—in that sense.
Fatigue due to identification.

No—at the beginning you will feel tired. Gradually you will feel a great freshness, a freshness you have never known. But at first there will be fatigue. The initial fatigue is because your identity is with the senses. You take them to be “I.” So when the senses get tired, you say, “I am tired.” This is exactly where your identity needs to break, isn’t it?

It’s like this: your horse gets tired while you are sitting on it—but you have always believed, “I am the horse.” Now the horse is tired and you say, “We are finished, we are exhausted.” What we call “our” tiredness simply reflects where our identity lies. If I am the horse, then I am tired.

The day you know “I am not the horse,” a very different kind of freshness will begin to arise. Then you will know: the senses are tired—but where am I tired? In fact, because the senses are tired and not working, much energy that used to radiate out through them and be wasted is now conserved within you and has gathered into a reservoir. You will experience more of what should be called “conservation of energy”: you have saved a great deal of energy that has become your wealth. And since it has not gone outward, it has spread within—into every hair, every pore. But only when it begins to dawn on you that you are distinct from all this will you notice the difference.

Freshness through meditation
So gradually, after meditation, you will feel an immense freshness. In fact, to call it “freshness” is not right—you will become freshness. Not that it will seem as if freshness is happening; you will be the freshness—you will be the Freshness. But that will happen when the identity changes. Right now you are sitting on the horse; your whole life you have believed, with great conviction, “I am the horse.” To understand that you are the rider will take time. And perhaps the horse will get tired and collapse—then it may become easier for you. If you have to walk a little on your own feet, you will discover that you are separate. But riding the horse for so long, you have even forgotten that you too can walk. That’s how it is. Therefore, if the horse gets tired, it will be good.