Main Kaun Hun #11

There are two or three points worth understanding here.

First: ten thousand years ago man walked on foot. Five thousand years ago he began traveling by bullock cart. Now he flies by jet. Just as we have developed speed for moving on the earth, the means for the movement of consciousness should also develop—because that too is a kind of movement.

If five thousand years ago someone had to labor for years to attain meditation, the reason was not that meditation was difficult. The reason lay in the means of reaching it: they were of the bullock-cart kind—or like walking on foot.

The day human beings become scientific about the inner being, meditation may be available in a single instant. For attaining meditation there is no intrinsic connection with time. Time always pertains to the means, not to meditation itself. The destination has no relation to time; the relation lies with the vehicle you choose for the journey.

If someone says, “Earlier we would reach Delhi after walking for a year,” that year had no inherent relation to “reaching Delhi”; the year was related to walking on foot. Later, with a bullock cart, you arrived in three months—still, Delhi had nothing to do with three months; the three months belonged to the cart. Today you might reach in half an hour by air—again, Delhi has nothing to do with half an hour; your craft covers it in that time. It could well be that tomorrow we reach in half a minute. One day even half a second may feel too long. Everything depends on the intensity and quality of the means we employ.

We have developed immense speed in the outer life; we have not done the same in the inner. But it can be done inwardly too.

The meditation experiment I am speaking of becomes effective within forty minutes. The issue is not “forty minutes”; the issue is whether you are willing to engage a specific process for forty minutes. And if your intensity is greater, it can happen in twenty minutes. If your intensity is total—if you can be there with your whole being even for a single instant—it can happen in a single instant. Everything depends on how total, how integrated, how wholeheartedly you plunge into the resolve.

But the yogic techniques we commonly have are from the era when the bullock cart was the vehicle. So there are still people sitting in caves employing five-thousand-year-old processes.

And I want to tell you: until we give religion a momentum equal to science, science will keep winning and religion will keep losing. Religion too must move with science. It can—there is no difficulty.

Let me offer a few examples to show how the means can gain speed.

If a man fasts for forty days and then his mind becomes quiet, what do you think happens in the body? A forty-day fast alters the body’s chemical balance. Some elements are depleted; others accumulate. The existing chemical equilibrium is transformed. That was the ancient way to work upon the body’s chemistry.

But if we employ science today, the same chemical shift that occurs through forty days of fasting can be induced with an injection. After all, the task is to bring about a chemical change. By starving for forty days, you are still only changing chemistry. Not eating for forty days—do you take that to be “spiritual”? And if not eating can be spiritual, why can an injection not be spiritual? Eating is material; an injection is just as material. There is no difference in kind.

By not eating for forty days the shift you bring is chemical: some juices are exhausted, some elements are reduced. Those same elements can be reduced by other means; and when they are, other elements become dominant. By an injection you can bring those elements to the fore now, in the same proportions that a forty-day fast would produce.

The day we use science, if someone says, “Like Mahavira you must fast for twelve years before knowledge arises,” I will say he is talking in the language of the bullock-cart era. Mahavira had the compulsion to fast for twelve years. If Mahavira were here today, he would not act so unwisely. There was no other option then; the only means at hand to induce the needed chemical transformations in the body was fasting.

Today the means are available. To refuse them is only to refuse the progress of religion.

If a man brings a shift by doing a headstand, that change is purely physical; there is nothing “spiritual” in it. Yet a physical shift can assist the spiritual journey. What happens through a headstand can also be accomplished without it. What does a headstand do? It increases the flow of blood to the head. There are many ways to increase cerebral blood flow without turning upside down.

As our understanding grows, we will see that even in the realm of religion man should take the help of scientific processes. Otherwise science will grow and man will shrink; science will become great and religion small. Religion will travel by bullock cart, and science by rocket—then do not expect religion to win.

Religion must become scientific.

The meditation experiment I speak of is scientific in many ways. And the forty minutes are carefully considered. You may have noticed that in schools and colleges a class period is never longer than forty minutes. Have you ever asked why? The human mind, as a rule, cannot do one thing with sustained freshness for more than forty minutes. After forty minutes the task should change, otherwise dullness, ennui, and boredom set in. Forty minutes is the mind’s ordinary span of expansion—hence forty minutes. And the four divisions of ten minutes each that I have specified are also useful to understand.

First ten minutes: bhastrika. Bhastrika means to move the lungs as a blacksmith works his bellows—throwing the breath in and out so vigorously that all the stale air inside can be expelled.

Perhaps you do not know: our lungs have some six thousand tiny pores. Ordinarily the breath we take reaches scarcely a thousand—typically only six hundred. Even if we run, breathe fast, or exercise, the breath does not reach more than two thousand pores. This means four thousand pores remain constantly filled with the dirt of carbon dioxide. Perhaps you do not know: the more carbon dioxide in our lungs, the more tamas—torpor, inertia—in our mind. That is why sleeping by day is difficult and by night easy—after sunset the air holds more carbon, less oxygen.

At dawn the whole world awakens—trees, animals, plants. They have no alarm clocks. How do they wake? What happens in that hour before sunrise that stirs everything? As the oxygen level in the atmosphere begins to rise, sleep begins to break. Sleep needs a higher proportion of carbon dioxide; as soon as it drops, sleep goes. The more sleep you need, the more carbon you need.

The meditation experiment is meant to break sleep—so that the inner stupor is shattered to the very depths. Hence ten minutes of bhastrika.

Breathe with such force that the lungs throw out all their filth and fill with fresh air. If the lungs fill completely with fresh air, a new surge of energy will begin in you—which years of mere sitting cannot bring. Our inner consciousness, like the outer body, has its rhythms: as oxygen in the lungs increases, awakening begins within.

The day we can use science in religion more fully, I would not have this done in an open field but in a hall—with large oxygen chambers so the space can be super-saturated with oxygen—then perhaps the work of ten minutes will be done in two.

The real question is: how to transform the ratio of carbon dioxide within? If that shifts, awakening is aided; alertness and attentiveness become natural.

So the first ten minutes are bhastrika. What I say has scientific grounding. When oxygen increases in the body, the body’s hidden electrical force—the body electric—also awakens.

Perhaps you do not know how vast the circuit of electrical force in the body is. We live by that electricity; it is our energy. As a car has a battery, so do we. Our body is an electrical circuit; sometimes the circuit breaks and great difficulty arises.

Recently in Sweden a woman’s body-circuit broke due to an injury or accident. She became hard to touch—whoever touched her got a shock. Loving her became a problem; she could not find a lover—touch her and a shock! She had to be treated, and with difficulty her circuit was restored.

In Germany a man experimented with his bodily electricity and lit a five-candle bulb by holding it in his hand. There is electricity in the body. Without it you cannot live. And when oxygen increases, that electricity becomes active. In that active state the whole body starts to vibrate with electrical pulsation. The gathered effects of that electricity begin to be felt along the spine—because the spine is the central column of our nervous system. As electricity awakens throughout the body, its currents gather along the spine. What yoga calls kundalini is the flow of electricity accumulated in the spine.

I am speaking in the language of science. Kundalini was the language of religion and yoga. A scientist asks, “Where is kundalini?” Even if you cut the whole spine, you will not “find” kundalini. That is like breaking a bulb and asking, “Where is the electricity?” Electricity is not found by smashing bulbs or cutting wires. No one has ever seen electricity—only its effects. Not the greatest scientist has seen it, nor will anyone ever see it. Only effects are seen.

Lightning in the sky is an effect—not “electricity itself.” A lit bulb is an effect; this microphone carrying sound to you is an effect.

We know only effects, not essences. The essence remains invisible. We have never seen light itself either. We only see lighted objects. Light itself has never been seen. A chair shines, a wall gleams, you are visible—in light. When there is no light, you are not seen. I say “it is dark.” We have never seen light; we have only seen objects illuminated by light. No one has seen light itself, nor ever will.

That kundalini cannot be found by cutting vertebrae. Old religious language has grown outdated and often becomes meaningless; our language must be renewed. Do not say kundalini; say body electricity, say bodily electrical energy. Naturally, if bodily electricity arises, its deepest effects will be observed in the spine, because the spine is the body’s axis, from which all nerves arise and to which they return. When this electricity is experienced along the spine, it feels as if something is rising—a serpent slithering upward.

The ancients had no language of electricity, no such symbol; yet the symbol they chose—the serpent—was exactly right. Nothing in their experience moved more sinuously. Today we hardly know snakes; they do not come into cement cities or sealed houses. We have driven them out. Once a year on Nag Panchami some snake-charmers bring them to town—but who knows for how long. They are not part of daily life.

Three or four thousand years ago, snakes were everywhere—the quickest, most sinuous thing people saw. When a seeker felt something moving up the spine, he said, “It is serpent-like.” If it is rising now, where was it before? When a snake sits, it coils up, making itself small. So he thought, “When this power is not rising, it must be coiled.” Hence the name kundalini—the coiled one.

When the snake hoods and rises, it stands fully upright. That is a miracle—there are no bones in a snake—yet when it hoods, the tail touches the ground and the hood spreads in the sky. Exactly so, when the entire electrical energy crosses the spine and spreads, it fans out in the brain like a hood.

That is why you see images of Tirthankaras and avatars with a cobra’s hood over the head. Do not imagine a real snake has anything to do with it; it is a symbol of the inner energy fully awakened and spread in the brain.

To awaken this bodily electricity, the first ten minutes require oxidation—flooding the body with oxygen. Then blood flow changes; atoms shift; the body’s whole arrangement alters. In that new arrangement, awakening of electricity becomes possible. Ten minutes are enough—if you do it. If you do not, even ten lifetimes are not enough.

Second ten minutes: When the body’s electrical force awakens, naturally many movements begin. Whenever new energy arises, the body moves. Watch a small child: as life-energy stirs, you can tell him to sit perfectly still in siddhasana in a corner—he may sit, but he will sway. Something is waking inside. Turn your eyes away for a moment and he will run—climb trees, roll on the ground, jump and skip. He is not trying to bother you; something is rising within that sets him in motion.

When kundalini—or this electrical energy—awakens, the whole body will find new gestures. From these movements, asanas and mudras evolved. Asanas and mudras do not create the movements; the movements gave birth to asanas and mudras. When energy rushes toward the head, suddenly you feel like standing on your head—placing your head on the ground brings great relief. Headstand was born thus.

When energy surges inward, a seeker feels like putting the head down and feet up; it brings relief. It is like sleeping with a pillow: remove the pillow and you say you cannot sleep. What does the pillow do? It regulates blood flow to the brain. When the head is high, less blood flows to the head; when it is low, more flows. The more blood flows to the head, the more sleep becomes impossible. Those who do headstands will need less sleep; overdo it and sleep may vanish.

So do not think a monk has risen above tamas and that is why he doesn’t sleep. The natural effect of headstand reduces sleep. But if you force headstands, harm can result: too much blood can rupture the brain’s fine nerves.

Usually, you will not find much intelligence among people who practice headstand excessively; it is hard to find. There are reasons—scientific reasons. Human intelligence arose because we stood upright. Animals did not, for a biological reason. The day an ancestor stood on two legs, intelligence began, because less blood reached the brain; with less blood the brain’s vessels grew finer, delicate fibers could develop—there are billions. If too much blood flows, these cannot form. Animals missed the trick; we stood on two legs—they still go on four.

So if you strive too much at headstands, you damage the brain. You are returning to the animal realm. Go to the Kumbh or religious fairs where sadhus gather: in nine out of ten faces you will see dullness, a kind of wooden stupor—intelligence gone. There are reasons.

Therefore I am not an advocate of headstand. But in a compelling moment it can help—if it happens by itself when energy surges. The body may dance. When electricity arises, the pulsations are so strong that if you do not dance you will feel great restlessness; if you dance, the restlessness dissolves and releases.

Hence the second stage gives the body ten minutes of complete freedom. Let it do whatever it wants—cry, laugh, dance—anything. Not only let it, but give it positive cooperation. Our whole civilization is suppressive. We neither laugh nor cry fully. We push everything down. What is pushed down does not vanish; it waits within for a chance to come out.

Men have virtually stopped crying. Men think crying is for women. You eat, women eat; you breathe, women breathe; you love, women love; you suffer, women suffer; you get angry, women get angry—but crying? Crying is only for women; men do not cry.

Men have so suppressed their tears that the fibers of their life are saturated with unshed crying. Until that weeping is released, a man cannot be light. That is why men go mad in greater proportion than women. The reason is the useless strains men take upon themselves. If a boy cries, we say, “Why are you crying like a girl?” But crying is part of life; women have taken no contract for it. This “contract” has become very costly for men. Women appear fresher, lighter, more beautiful for this reason. Men are more repressed—they do not cry, do not laugh loudly, do not dance, do not sing—stiff stone statues parading their manhood: more dead than alive.

When the second process begins, crying will start, laughter will start, dancing will start. Let it all out. That is catharsis—purging. Let what is suppressed be thrown out. You know what you do in the bathroom? I won’t ask—you won’t tell. In the bathroom even the wisest act like children—making faces in the mirror. Why? If the same man were in the drawing room, he could not. If someone peeked through the keyhole, you would instantly compose yourself, straighten your tie.

We are all afraid of each other. We have become one another’s enemies; whoever frightens you is your enemy. At home, father fears son and son fears father; wife fears husband and husband fears wife; friends fear friends. In this frightened world we have locked up our spontaneity, our natural, effortless self. We are acting, not living. We are actors, not living beings.

Have you noticed what you say to your wife—“There is no woman more beautiful than you”? Is it true? When you say, “I could never love anyone but you,” is it true? No—we are acting. We know it, and we go on acting.

This life—false, theatrical, suppressed—does not help in meditation.

Therefore in the second ten minutes I say: become natural. Let whatever happens, happen. Perhaps you don’t realize how many ghosts will be released in just ten minutes if you allow yourself to be open. Otherwise you will never allow it—and if you do, you will get into trouble. In the name of meditation you can allow it easily.

I have kept the second ten minutes as an essential space for catharsis. Until our purgation happens—until the garbage we have collected is thrown out—we can never be peaceful, never light, never childlike and simple. We will remain bound in chains. The tragedy is we guard our own chains—lest someone snatch them away. We hold on so we don’t burst into tears, lest we laugh loudly, lest we start dancing. Our culture has forgotten dancing—it is not a sign of a respectable person. We cannot sing at the top of our voice, we cannot run—we cannot do what a natural human life should contain. And if we cannot, we become crippled.

Bertrand Russell wrote that when he first returned from living with a tribal people, he said to his friends in London, “I am wondering whether what we have gained through civilization is really worth gaining, and whether what we have lost was truly worth losing.”

“What do you mean?”

He said, “I cannot dance in Trafalgar Square. A traffic policeman will arrest me for obstructing traffic. My wife will think I have gone mad; my children will say, ‘What we expected of a philosopher has finally happened.’ You will arrange electric shocks for me. But I have seen people dancing in the jungle—at midnight under the moon—their free, unpatterned dance with no elaborate rules, no classicism, no Kathak. They dance whatever arises from within—no rigid order.”

Dancing itself is joy; it needs no technique. But we clever people even make dancing a labyrinth—so much training that by the time a man “learns” to dance, he has lost the mood to dance. He dances like a puppet; the dancing mind is gone.

That is why I consider the rebellion of Western youth a good omen: they invented a dance that needs no learning. They are dancing with open hearts. The band plays and the feet move as they will. No system, no classicism, no training. This is precious.

But our culture has lost this. And if it can return, it will return only through meditation—I know this.

So the second ten minutes are for catharsis. No more is needed; if you agree to do it, in ten minutes you will be lighter than you have ever been.

The third ten minutes are an inquiry: Who am I?

This is religion’s fundamental inquiry. It is not primarily “Is there God?” You cannot know that until you know who you are. Nor is it “When was creation made?” Even if you found the date, what would change? You would not become religious. That would be the historian’s discovery, the archaeologist’s interest—not religion’s concern.

Religion’s basic question is one: Who am I? This life of mine, this breath, this mind, these thoughts, my love and my anger—this bundle that I call “I”—who am I? What am I? Some acquaintance, some understanding, some recognition? Religion concerns this fundamental question. Religion is centered not on God but on man. Those who made religion God-centered severed man’s connection with religion.

No—religion has nothing to do with a God sitting in the sky. It has to do with you, the man standing on the earth. Religion is man-centered, not God-centered. True, when a man knows himself, the door to knowing the divine opens—and that door is his own. The day I recognize myself, I discover I am not only this “I”; within me lies a vaster being.

As if a well asked, “Who am I?” If it searched, it would find water-sources beneath; and if it followed them to their origin, it would have to reach the ocean, for less than the ocean the source cannot be finally known.

Our roots, our sources, similarly spread to the divine. But first I must ask, Who am I? Who is this well? Entering through this question, I will reach the ocean. I must—there is no stopping place before that, no end to inquiry before that. The inquiry begins with “Who am I?” and is fulfilled with “Who is the divine?” It starts with “I,” ends with “Thou.” The first step is “I,” the last step is “You”—but “You” is not the first.

Hence the third stage is an inquiry: Who am I?

But this will not do as a mere gentle asking, because we live in the veranda of our life; we do not even know there is an inside. We live outside and have forgotten the inner chambers. We are born in the veranda, live in the veranda—fighting, loving, producing children there—and die and are buried there. We never enter the house.

Entrance is possible only when “Who am I?” ceases to be a question to be answered by someone else and becomes a quest whose answer I must realize in myself. Therefore you must put your whole life-energy into it. After the first two stages this becomes easy: the body’s electricity is awake; the body’s stagnation and ailments have been purged; the mind is light—then we can enter within and ask, Who am I?

Today someone asked me, “Whom should we ask, ‘Who am I?’”

It seems a fair question. I said, “Sometimes your glasses go missing in your room and no one else is there. You still ask, ‘Where are my glasses?’ Whom are you asking—the walls, the glasses, the chair? The words come out of your mouth, ‘Where are my glasses?’ It is addressed to no one; you are asking yourself.”

As long as you ask someone else, your spiritual life will not begin; you will only remain a curiosity-monger. Not even truly a seeker—just a lover of questions directed outward.

The day you ask yourself, real longing is born and the journey begins. No one else can answer. If you yourself don’t know who you are, who will tell you? If I don’t know who I am, to whom should I go to ask? And whatever I learn second-hand is dangerous. Someone may tell me, “You are the soul,” and I will go home at ease, “I am the soul.” Tomorrow this “soul” is caught stealing, doing black marketing—likely lifting something from the guru’s house while leaving! Can someone else tell me I am the Self? Someone says, “You are Brahman—aham brahmasmi—go, enjoy!” Will understanding that help? People sit chanting, “I am Brahman.” Their chanting itself shows they do not know—otherwise what need to chant?

If a man sat in the corner repeating, “I am a man, I am a man,” the neighbors would suspect something is wrong. Is this something to repeat? If you are, fine. If you are not, repeating won’t make it so.

People repeat, “I am Brahman!” They recite at dawn: aham brahmasmi! They open scripture to check if they read it right. Again and again: aham brahmasmi! Even Brahman would get tired of such babble. This repetition accomplishes nothing.

No—the point is not to assume beforehand who I am. First to know: I do not know; I am ignorant. No scripture can be my knowledge; no wise saying can be my knowledge; another’s answer cannot be my answer.

Beware of stale, second-hand answers. You can eat stale food once and rinse your mouth with antiseptic, but do not swallow stale knowledge—no disinfectant has yet been invented to cleanse that. It is very contagious; its germs seep deep into the life.

So in the third stage we ask: Who am I? Not merely ask—we drive it like an arrow into our life-energy: Who am I? Any ready-made answer the intellect offers must be refused. Tell your memory to be silent: “You read in the Upanishads you are That—be quiet! Reading won’t help me now.” “In the Gita you read you are the one whom arrows cannot pierce and fire cannot burn”—tell memory, “Silence! Let me find out.” Only when memory does not perform the drama of “knowing” can you enter within.

Thus the third stage is scientific: remove memory and ask directly, Who am I?

What happens?

As this question deepens, as it hammers within, consciousness moves from the outer veranda into the inner chambers. Finally you arrive not at a place where an answer is found, but at a place where the question falls away.

Understand this difference well.

Not a place where an answer is obtained—but where the question drops. You stand dumbfounded, having known yourself: “So this is what I am!” No slip of paper appears that says, “You are Brahman.” No plaque inside the house announcing it. There are no words there—no answer—but That which is the answer is found.

You do not get an answer; you find the One you were asking about, the One who was asking, the One to whom the question belonged—and there is silence. Everything becomes still. In that moment there is no question, no answer—there is knowing. Where all questions and answers cease, knowledge is.

Remember, there are only two ways to go within: clutch an answer, or clutch a question.

Understand this.

I do not use an answer in the third stage; I use the question. If you use an answer, you may spend thousands of years and never reach within.

Why?

Because answers come from outside and cannot take you in. Answers satisfy—and satisfaction is always an obstacle. Answers make you complacent; a complacent man does not set out on a quest. An answer ends inquiry. The answer lacks the question mark that prods you forward; it says, “You have found it.” Aham brahmasmi—now sit; why walk further? Then a man remains stuck, playing one sour note.

I heard of a “musician”—whether you would call him that I don’t know; his wife didn’t, nor did his neighbors. He played a stringed instrument gripping one string in one place and rubbing it for hours. The same single note, again and again—enough to jangle nerves. His wife pleaded, “What are you doing? Others also play, but no one does this—one string, one spot, for hours! The neighbors have reported to the police; some are applying for gun licenses. Please stop.”

He said, “Foolish woman, you don’t understand. Those who move their fingers up and down have not yet found the right spot. I have found it, so I play it. When they find it, they will stop wandering.”

Those who have “answers” from outside play like this: “aham brahmasmi, aham brahmasmi.” No journey happens with answers. He who thinks “I’ve got it” stops.

The search is where it is known that it is not yet found; where it is known there is still to seek; where it is known there is no answer to this question except one I must realize.

So in the third stage there is no answer. Otherwise I could tell you to repeat, “I am Brahman, I am God.” No—ask, “Who am I?” with such intensity that you yourself disappear and only questioning remains—no questioner, no object—just the pure urge to know.

Within these thirty minutes the event can happen that is hard to accomplish in years. And it happens. I say this from the experience of hundreds. Do not believe me—let it happen and see. You need not accept my words; take them as a hypothesis: perhaps it is so. Do it fully—and then decide whether the event happens or not.

I say, come to my window and see the sunrise. I do not say, “Believe.” Come to the window—even full of doubt—but at least come. Look. And if you see the sun, will you say, “But the sages took thousands of years in bullock carts to see the sun—how can it be so simple?” See it, and yet you will ask, “How can it be so?” The divine is not far. The question is the method, the means.

I have heard of a man running hard near Delhi. He asked an old villager by the road, “Baba, how far is Delhi?” The old man said, “It depends on two things. First, which direction are you going? If you keep going the way you are headed, Delhi is as far as anything can be—because you will have to circle the entire earth; Delhi is eight miles behind you. If you insist on going this way, go ahead—you may circle the whole earth. Remember, if your circle goes even slightly off, there is no certainty you will reach Delhi—you may get lost. Second, walk a bit and show me your pace; then I can estimate how far Delhi is for you. Delhi’s distance depends on the walker. It isn’t a fixed thing. Will you walk, ride, run, crawl, sit? Show me your gait.”

The man said, “What a strange fellow you are! I’ve asked many people how far something is, but no one asked me so many questions.”

The old man said, “I prefer to answer rightly—or not at all.”

Naturally, “the distance to Delhi” is not fixed. It depends on many things: how you walk, whether you walk. Otherwise Delhi may be only eight miles away, but the man who stands still may never reach it, while the one who circled the earth might arrive. If your gait is like an ant—or, as with many religious people, most peculiar—it is hard to tell which way you are going.

A boy once reached school very late. The teacher asked why. He said, “Didn’t you see the rain? The streets were so muddy that whenever I took one step forward, both feet slipped two steps back. Somehow I made it.” The teacher said, “If you took one step forward and slipped two back, how did you reach?” The boy said, “I turned to face home and put my back toward school—and came straight here.”

It depends on how you walk. Religious people often walk like this—one step forward, two back. If that is your way, you will never reach the divine—not in any lifetime. The question is how you walk.

The process I described is scientific, concise, direct. If you are a little straightforward, it can work.

After the three stages, the last ten minutes are only waiting. We can do nothing more. A man can only leave himself open for the divine. Can we drag “Him” in? How? Can we grasp “Him” in our fist? At most we can send an invitation and wait. The sun rises outside the door; we can leave our door open and say, “Come in”—we cannot bring the sun in. If the door is open, the sun comes.

Note a strange fact. We cannot bring the sun in—but we can keep it out. Close the door. Not only that; we carry a small pair of doors in our pocket—our eyelids. The door may be open, but if we close our eyes, what can the sun do? Close these tiny shutters and the sun is helpless. Negativity we have in abundance. Negatively, we can block the divine; positively, we cannot compel it.

So what can we do?

Only this: dismantle our negative arrangements. Be naked, empty—door open—and wait. I call such waiting prayer: waiting that is ready to watch for eternity without impatience.

Thus the fourth ten minutes are just waiting. We do not know for sure who will come; we have never seen the guest. Still we sit at the door: the guest will come. Unknown, unfamiliar—but you begin to hear the sound of distant footsteps. If the first three stages are complete, you hear the footfall; the rays of his light begin to enter; his fragrance begins to descend; his music begins to play; news of him arrives.

We can wait with the door open. One who is filled with complete waiting—complete waiting means complete emptiness, complete silence—even the desire to wait must not stand in the way, for that too is a hindrance. Total waiting is utter emptiness. In that ten minutes, if we can watch in perfect emptiness, surely the One we seek arrives; surely news of the Sought comes. But if your way of walking is different—one step forward, two back—if you keep saying, “What can we do? The mud of the world, the net of maya,” then…

Certainly they used to sit in caves. The reason for sitting in caves—the reason was simply this: the means available to them were not such that it was easy to do it while sitting amid the crowds. Today the situation has completely changed. Today we can do it even sitting in the midst of the crowd. And yes, they certainly used to do it sitting in caves, because two thousand, three thousand, four thousand years ago, all the knowledge then available assumed that unless one ran away from society, God could not be realized. Perhaps those who had run away and had realized became so influential that a whole current formed around that. But I say to you: whoever you are, wherever you are, you can realize God right there.

What, in fact, is the difficulty? The difficulty is of a certain kind. I have heard of a man in America who wanted to prove one thing: that the number thirteen is inauspicious. What did he do? He went to hospitals and found out how many patients admitted on the thirteenth die. He found plenty. He would have found them on the twelfth too—on the eleventh as well. People keep dying in hospitals. But he calculated how many die on the thirteenth. He went to the police department and asked how many murders occur on the thirteenth. He asked psychologists how many people feel inclined to commit suicide on the thirteenth. He went to prisons and found out how many begin serving sentences on the thirteenth. He checked the courts to see how many people are punished on the thirteenth. He asked the municipality how many accidents happen on the thirteenth. He gathered together from all over the world whatever bad happens on the thirteenth.

Then he wrote a big book. If you read that book, you cannot escape the thirteenth—then you are finished. After reading it, many hotels in America dropped room number thirteen; after twelve came straight fourteen. They eliminated the thirteenth floor; after the twelfth, straight to the fourteenth—because no one was willing to stay on the thirteenth floor, no one willing to go into room thirteen!

Naturally, if that man had done the same work in favor of the twelfth, that would have happened too. Life is vast.

In fact, what happened is that three or four thousand years ago, those who ran away from society had the experience of God. All those people concluded that running away from society is necessary for the experience of God. This is the thirteen-number case—because the ones who ran away were the ones speaking. But now it can be said that people have also experienced God in the midst of life. And if one person can, then another can too.

In truth, the experience of God has nothing to do with a cave in the forest or a room in your house; it has to do with the state of your mind. It may be that someone finds that state of mind available in a cave—then let him joyfully go to his cave. But it may also be that someone cannot find that state in a cave at all, and that very state is available to him best in his own home—then he will find it at home.

For God there are no compulsory conditions. For God there are no mandatory prerequisites. But such mistakes happen often. If a man wearing white clothes attains God, he may imagine that wearing white is a necessary condition for attaining God.

I have heard this. In a small American mountain village, two men had their birthdays on the same day. Both were villagers. The people of the village said: since their birthdays fall on the same day, we should arrange some celebration in their honor. They had turned seventy-five. The hour of their farewell was also approaching. Something should be done to honor them. The villagers put their heads together. For two or three days they discussed. Then the biggest idea they could come up with was this: those days, for the first time, a train had begun running at the foot of their mountain. So the villagers—poor people—said, Let’s buy two tickets and let these two ride the train to the capital. What could be better! No one in that village had yet gone by train. These would be the first two.

The villagers pooled money, bought the tickets, and seated them on the train at the station with great ceremony. They also gave them some pocket money for the way, to eat and drink on the journey.

Those two old men were not old at all that day—so young, so delighted, so childlike. Such an event was happening! Sitting in the train, they began to look all around to see what was what. Vendors came selling this and that. Then someone came selling soda pop. The two old men winked at each other: There must be some secret in this. A bottle! They had only ever known bottles of liquor. When a man bought a soda and drank it, they said, Let’s buy one too. But lest it make us too tipsy, let’s take just one: I’ll drink half, you drink half. First we’ll try it; if we need more, we’ll buy more. They took the soda. One man drank half. Just as he had finished his half, the train entered a tunnel—suddenly, pitch darkness. The other said, Hurry up, brother, don’t drink it all! The first old man said, Don’t touch that stuff even by mistake! I have been struck blind! Don’t touch it by mistake—I’ve gone blind! Good that I drank it and you didn’t. I have no one behind me, but you have children, a wife, everyone...

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