Neti Neti Shunya Ki Naon #5

Certainly, up to now life has been called a bondage. But life is not bondage. For those who do not know the art of living, life does indeed become a bondage.

A few friends were traveling through a foreign land. They were hungry and stopped at a fruit shop, but the fruits being sold there were unfamiliar. It was a strange country; they didn’t know what those fruits were. Coconuts were being sold, but in the country they came from there were no coconuts. They asked, What is this? The shopkeeper said, Very, very delicious, very sweet, very strengthening fruits. They bought them. The shopkeeper added in praise that great emperors and kings buy these fruits from my shop.

They moved on. Outside the village they stopped and tried to eat the fruits, but they had no acquaintance with coconuts. The fruits they knew didn’t have such a hard shell. They began to eat the coconut from the outside. They got very troubled. Their mouths turned bitter. No taste appeared anywhere. Biting into them was difficult, almost impossible. One by one they threw the fruits away and said, The emperors and kings of this country are great fools to eat such fruits. There is neither taste nor juice nor any meaning in them. How mad the people of this land are!

Throwing away the fruits, they went on hungry, and on returning home they widely proclaimed, We have passed through a country of fools. There people eat stone-like fruits and praise them!

Those poor fellows did not even know the fruits weren’t stone-like; they simply didn’t know how to eat them. The method of eating was unknown.

Likewise, for those unfamiliar with the way of tasting the fruit of life—the art of enjoying life, the path to its juice, the way to experience its rhythm—it is no wonder that life appears like an iron chain.

Life is not a chain, and there is no moksha apart from life.

One who is able to know life in its completeness attains moksha in the very midst of life, right in the thick of it.

It cannot be that life and moksha are in opposition. It cannot be that there are two antagonistic realities in existence. It cannot be that God and the world are fundamentally enemies. There is a deep bridge of friendship. The One alone is manifest everywhere—in the world and in liberation; in body and in soul; in form and in the formless.

But our failure—our limitation in tasting the fruit of life—has kept becoming bondage for us. We have not learned the art of living. Rather, not knowing the art, when life felt bitter and tasteless, we tried to break life itself, not to change ourselves. We have behaved like that madman; perhaps you have heard of him. If not, let me tell you—and perhaps you will even recognize who that madman is.

There was a madman. He thought himself very beautiful—as all madmen do. He believed there was no one on earth as beautiful as he. These are the signs of madness. But he was afraid to stand before a mirror. Whenever someone brought a mirror before him, he would smash it at once. People asked, Why? He said, I am so beautiful, and the mirror does some mischief—it makes me look ugly. The mirror tries to make me ugly. I will not tolerate any mirror; I will break them all! I am beautiful, and mirrors make me ugly! He never looked into a mirror; if someone brought one, he broke it immediately.

Human beings, too, have behaved like that madman. We don’t consider that the mirror only shows my image. The mirror only tells what I am. The mirror has no purpose to make me ugly. The mirror doesn’t even know me. As I am, so the mirror reveals me. But instead of seeing that I am ugly, we get busy breaking the mirror.

Those who leave the world and run away are people who break mirrors. If the world appears sorrowful, remember, the world is nothing more than a mirror. Only that is seen which we are.

If suffering is the arrangement of our life, suffering will be seen in the world.
If anxiety is the arrangement of our mind, anxiety will shimmer in the world.
If we have collected thorns, thorns will appear in the world.
The world is our echo. What is within us resounds—echoes back.

But no, we are not willing to see this. We say, the world is bondage. We say, the world is sorrow. We say, the world is futile—let us abandon it, smash it, be free, get out.

Out of what will you get out? Does anyone become free by breaking a mirror? Does anyone become free by stopping echoes?

If you want to be free, you have to change yourself, not smash life. If you want freedom, you must transform yourself from the very roots. And one who becomes ready for such a radical transformation finds that life is a benediction, a fulfillment. He overflows with gratitude toward the divine—life is so beautiful, so wondrous, so full of savor, so full of rhythm, so many songs, so much music. But to see all that, capacity and receptivity are needed. One needs eyes to see, ears to hear, hands that can truly touch.

By “the art of living” I mean this: that our sensitivity, our capacity, our receptivity become so refined that whatever is beautiful in life, whatever is true in life, whatever is the good, the auspicious (shivam) in life—may reach our hearts. That we may be able to experience it all.

But the way we behave with life, our heart’s mirror neither becomes polished nor pure nor clear; it grows grimy and gathers dust. Reflections become harder to receive. The way we have made life—the whole education, the whole culture, the whole society—does not take a human being’s personality in the right direction. From childhood the wrong direction begins, and that wrong direction keeps obstructing our very acquaintance with life. It will be useful to understand a few points about this; and the questions asked in this regard will also be resolved.

First, to experience life an authentic mind, an authentic consciousness is needed. Our whole mind is formal—ceremonial—not authentic. We have never loved authentically, never been authentically angry, never authentically hated, never authentically forgiven.

The movements and forms of our mind are formal, false, pseudo. With a false mind, how can one know life’s truth? Only with a true mind can one relate to life’s truth. Our entire mind is pseudo and formal. Understand this well.

It is morning; you step outside your home and someone appears on the road. You fold your hands in greeting and say, “I’m so happy to see you, it’s a blessing to have your darshan.” But in your mind you think, “What a wretch—how did his face appear so early in the morning?”

This is the inauthentic mind; here begins the unauthentic. We live twenty‑four hours a day in this double way—how then can there be any relationship with life? And then we blame life! Bondage arises from duplicity. There is no bondage in life itself.

Bondage is born of human doubleness. We live double. Inside something else, outside something else. If it were only double, even that might be manageable; we live in a thousand ways all at once. A thousand voices run within us together. There is no authenticity, no truthfulness in our personality. The whole personality feels false, like acting.

But whom are you deceiving? In whose presence is this acting going on? You won’t fool anyone else. In this deception you will deprive yourself of knowing yourself, deprive yourself of relating to life. There is deception of every kind—most deeply on the levels of the mind, where nothing of ours remains true.

Have you ever loved anyone truly? The so‑called sensible people say: only fools fall in love. The sensible talk about love, perform it, but never love. The practical people—“practical men”—they only talk of love. All our feelings have shrunk to talk. We have never seized any experience of life with such intensity that we would live for it—or die for it.

There is no authentic wager anywhere in our life. Even our anger—flaccid, impotent. There is no force, no power in it. One who cannot be authentically angry—how will he authentically forgive? Only one capable of anger can truly forgive. Only one capable of being an enemy can truly be a friend.

But we can be neither enemies nor friends. We stand in the middle—suspended, Trishanku. No emotional stance remains in our life.

Once—a rustic youth; it’s an old story, because now there are no rustic people left in the world. Villages remain; villagers do not. Everyone has become urban. A country lad married. This happened in America two or two‑and‑a‑half centuries ago in some village. He married and, taking his bride in his horse carriage, started back toward the village. On the way the horse balked and stopped. He tried to urge it on, but it wouldn’t move. He said to the horse, “This is once!”

His wife didn’t understand what was being said to the horse. A little further, the horse balked again. The young man said, “This is twice!”

His wife still kept quiet.

The third time the horse balked. He said, “This is thrice!” He got down, took up his gun, and shot the horse.

His wife was shocked! She pushed him hard and said, “What cruelty! What madness!”

He looked at her and said, “This is once.” He said, “That’s the first time.”

His wife was stunned.

The young man said, “You still have two chances left.”

Later his wife wrote: For the first time I looked upon a person whose anger could blaze so intensely; and for the first time I saw a force, a power, a radiance in his personality.

I am not telling you to go shoot anyone... But his wife also said that the same man could love with the same intensity.

The teachers who have poisoned humankind’s life have made us impotent on all sides, taught paralysis on all sides, put a stop—on all sides—to life’s intense feelings, imprisoned us everywhere. Then nothing strong remains within.

One morning in Akbar’s court an incident occurred. Two Rajput youths came in, naked swords in their hands. They stood before Akbar’s throne and said, “We are two Rajput brothers, twins. We have come seeking service.”

Akbar asked, “What are your qualifications?”

They said, “We are brave men; we have no other qualification.”

Akbar said, “Do you have any proof—any certificate?”

Their eyes flashed like live coals. Their swords came out of their scabbards and, in a single instant, entered each other’s chests. A moment later, two bodies lay there; fountains of blood were flowing.

Akbar was shaken; his hands and feet trembled. He called his Rajput commander and said, “What was this? I only asked a small thing—do you have a certificate of bravery?”

The Rajput commander said, “You said the wrong thing. Do you ever ask a Rajput for a certificate of bravery? What certificates can there be for bravery except that a man stakes his life on the spot? What other certificate could there be? Are there paper certificates for courage? They have shown what bravery means. It means only this: a man can stand fearless before death. There is no other meaning to courage. And courage has no certificates. The man who carries a certificate of bravery—no one could be more cowardly than he. In truth, only cowards haul certificates around; the brave carry none.”

Akbar had it recorded in his memoirs: That incident stayed with me. I saw two living men. In a single moment, in a single intensity, I saw an authentic life; I saw that flash which is the human flash.

But from our lives that flash has vanished. Neither does anger ever blaze like lightning, nor love. There is no radiance at all. We have become people without glow, without electricity, without force, without power.

Then there can be no relationship with life. To relate to life, not scriptures, not temple prayers, but intensity is needed—an intense life. There is only one prayer in the temple of the deity of life: intense living; a vehement life; a strong, powerful life; a life full of energy.

We all go on living without energy. We don’t walk the roads—we are pushed along.

In my view, the first lesson in the art of living is this: how intensely can we take life? Can we live each moment intensely—as if our whole life were at stake in each single moment? Who knows whether the next moment will come—whether the next breath will come? The truth is: at every moment life is on the line.

You are sitting here now—so lazily, so relaxed. If you were told: you have only one hour left—what would that hour be? Or if you were told: only one more moment, this is the last moment—how would you live that moment?

The truth is, a person is never given more than one moment of life. There is no guarantee of the next. It may come; it may not. The moment I have in my hand is the only moment in my hand. If I do not live this moment with my total strength, I will never learn the art of living. If I am eating, who knows if I will ever eat again? If I am loving someone, who knows whether this moment of love will come again? If I am watching the stars, who can say I will see these stars again?

So the first sutra in the art of living can only be this: whatever I am doing, whichever moment I am passing through, whatever I am—let me become that totally. Let me be complete in it. Let it become the concentrated nucleus of my whole life—because beyond it, nothing is known. Nothing is known!

Tonight when you sleep, what is the certainty you will wake up tomorrow morning? Then sleep totally—because whether sleep will come again, there is no saying. And if you go to bid a friend farewell, let that farewell be so complete, so perfect—who knows whether you will ever meet again?

But we live so slackly that there is no sense of the intensity of moments in our lives, no clarity. We live as if we are going to live forever. We live lazily, sluggishly, as if life were laziness, indolence, negligence.

Life is intensity. And the more intensely one lives, the deeper one enters the temple of life.

But intensity is not taught. We never cry with such intensity that our whole life turns into tears. Then even tears become wondrous—when they come from the whole being. Then those tears are more precious than diamonds, jewels, pearls. Tears that carry the glint of one’s entire life—if even once a person weeps like that, he relates to life through the very door of weeping. Or when we smile, let it be the smile of our whole being. That smile too will take us into the same intensity. Let every experience of life become intensity.

But is there such intensity in our life?

If not, life will appear a bondage. And that is not life’s fault. It is a symptom of your slack, non‑intense, loose, lazy, negligent living. It proves you have not learned how to live.

To live, in my vision—and when you know life, it will be in yours too—is a wager at every moment, a gamble, on which everything is to be staked. Only the one who stakes all comes to know all. We stake nothing. Everything of ours is false, verbal. We have never had faith with our whole being, never loved, never truly laughed, never truly wept.

I remember a story. In Vijayanagar there was a great musician. His seventieth birthday was being celebrated in the royal court. People who loved and revered him came from afar, bringing precious offerings. Kings came, wealthy men came, accomplished musicians came. The court overflowed with gifts.

At the door a beggar arrived and sent word: “I too have brought an offering. Please let me in.” But his clothes were torn; he was poor and wretched. The doorkeepers tried to turn him back. He began to weep: “What can I do? I too have brought an offering—at least let me enter.”

Who would let a beggar in? But his voice, his weeping, his cry reached inside. The musician heard. He said, “Do let him come in—whatever he has brought. Even if he is a beggar. An offering is of love. Surely he has brought something.”

He was not very old, perhaps forty. He was brought in. Thousands were present. He came, bowed at the musician’s feet and said, “O God! Grant the rest of my life to this musician!” And in that very instant, his life departed. In that very instant, he died.

This is a historical event, not a fable. Thousands stood stunned. Such an offering had neither been seen nor heard of. But only in moments of totality—only then—can such a possibility occur. When the whole being desires, then if what is desired happens, it is no miracle. A prayer rising from the whole being is fulfilled before it rises; a longing arising from the whole being becomes truth before it becomes a word; a dream desired with the whole being becomes reality before it takes form.

But with our whole being we have never desired anything, nor learned the art of living with our whole being. That is why life appears bondage. One who lives with his whole being lives continually in freedom. For him there is no liberation somewhere else; he lives in moksha every moment. Liberation is not in heaven, not in the sky somewhere; it is in the art of living life in totality.

Rabindranath was nearing death. A friend said, “Now the final moment has come, evening has come to life. Pray to God to free you from the cycle of birth and death.”

Rabindranath opened his eyes, which had been closed, and he laughed. He said to his friend, “The life God gave me was so blessed, I am so fulfilled by it—how could I ask to be freed from life? My only prayer in this final moment will be: if there is even a little worthiness in me, O Lord, send me back again and again into your world. If there is the slightest worthiness in me, send me back again and again. Your world was very beautiful. And if I ever saw any ugliness, it must have been my fault—my mistake. Your world had many flowers; and if thorns pricked me, that too must have been my error. Let me come next time more capable, so that I can experience the joy of your life even more.”

In the last days of his life Gandhi made an unusual experiment. Perhaps you don’t know it, because Gandhi’s disciples tried their best to conceal it. That experiment could not be discussed across the land. In those last days, he made a small experiment—perhaps the most important experiment of his life. He began to sleep at night with a naked young woman, so that he could fully know whether any outline of desire remained in his mind, whether any fascination for the body remained. When the whole life‑energy flows toward God, no feeling remains of flowing toward the body. Let it be tested, recognized, searched out.

Before doing the experiment, he wrote to about twenty of his closest friends: “I intend to do this. Before I do, I want to know if you agree, if you consent, if you have any objection, any opposition.” Of the twenty replies, nineteen were essentially like this: “You are a great mahatma; whatever you do is right; but please do not do this experiment. It will bring great disrepute. This will happen, that will happen.” The refrain was the same: “You are a great mahatma, but...” Gandhi would read, set the letter aside, and say, “Where ‘but’ has come, everything said before has become false. ‘You are a great mahatma—but...’ What need is there of ‘but’ with a great mahatma? Better to say, ‘You are a small man, therefore...’—at least that would be true, honest, authentic.”

But among the twenty there was one letter that filled Gandhi’s eyes with tears of joy. It was from J. B. Kripalani. He wrote, “You ask me, and I am surprised. If I were to see you committing adultery with my own eyes, my first doubt would be of my eyes, not of you. My first doubt would be of my eyes, not you. And you ask me? I am amazed. It would have been fitting if I had asked you.”

Such people—who look at life this way... But we do not doubt our eyes; we doubt the whole God. We say, life is bondage. We say, life is futile. We say, life is evil. And never once does it occur to us that perhaps my eyes are at fault—that perhaps my seeing is wrong.

I call that person religious who doubts his own eyes, his own mind, his own way of being—who suspects himself, not this vast life. That man is religious. That man can learn the art of living. Because one who doubts himself can find a way to change himself.

But if you doubt life, there is only one way: turn your back on life—run away, renounce, deny, abandon. Gradually arrange to die—withdraw from life and move toward death.

Therefore the first memorable point in the art of living is this: if life appears to me bondage, sorrow, pain—somewhere I am wrong. Where am I wrong? The first ground of my wrongness is that I am formal, not authentic. My being is a lie. My words are false, my gestures are false, my eyes speak falsehood—everything is false. Reflect deeply: have I erected a false personality?

We all have. From childhood, the seeds of poison are sown, and personality becomes false. But once awareness dawns, only then can something be done to make it true. So I say: with courage and effort—mindfully—live each moment authentically, with full intensity. When you weep, weep totally, with your whole being. When you laugh, laugh with your whole being. Friendship—let it be with your whole being. Eating too—with your whole being. Remembering—with your whole being. Sleep, wake—with your whole being.

As if each moment that comes will not come again. It is to be passed through only once. There is no possibility of passing that way again. That moment will not return; that opportunity will not return. So if it is to be passed through once, let me pass through with full awareness, fully awake, with my whole life. Let my total personality, my whole being be involved, aligned, in one‑pointedness. Then slowly you will begin to see that life’s bondages are falling away. The bonds lay in your slack living. The very moment you live intensely, they drop.

But you must experiment. You must practice. You must take steps in that direction and keep mindful every day, every moment: am I beginning to live falsely again?

A husband tells his wife every day, “I love you.” And when he says it, he doesn’t even know what he is doing. Words come out as if from a gramophone record—without life, without meaning. The wife knows it. He knows it. She too says, “I love you. I will stake my life. I cannot live a moment without you.”

Behind these words there is no testimony of the life-force. These words are false. Do not say them. Sit quietly—better that way. But do not say them. By saying such things you are weaving the net that entangles your whole personality.

We keep bowing where we have no reverence. We keep worshiping in temples where we see only stone. We carry on our heads scriptures in which we have never seen any glimpse of truth. The whole personality is false.

From this falseness, how will any path open toward life’s truth—how will any door open, how will any step arise? When you went to the temple with folded hands, were your hands truly joined? Did you ever experience any divine presence there? Then why did you go? Who told you to stand before those idols?

A fakir one night stayed in a temple in Japan. A very cold night. He had little clothing. The priest took pity and let him stay inside. At midnight the priest woke and, alarmed, saw that a fire was burning in the temple courtyard and the fakir was warming himself. He rushed: “What are you doing? Have you gone mad!” There were three wooden statues of Gautam Buddha. The fakir had burned one for warmth. The priest cried, “Madman! What are you doing—burning the idol of God? Burning God?”

The fakir took a stick lying nearby and began poking the ashes of the burned statue. The priest asked, “What are you doing?”

He said, “I am looking for God’s bones.”

The priest slapped his forehead: “I’m in trouble for sheltering a madman. Where would there be bones in a wooden statue?”

The fakir laughed: “If there are no bones in a wooden statue, how can there be God in it? Go—there is a lot of night left. Two more statues are there. Bring them. You warm yourself; I will warm myself.”

That very night the fakir was thrown out of the temple into the cold—because the priest saw God in the wooden statues and did not care that this living God would be cold outside. He was thrown out.

In the morning when the priest went out, he saw the fakir sitting by the milestone at the roadside, hands folded in prayer. He was as amazed as he had been at night. He shook him and said, “Madman! What are you doing? Praying to a stone?”

The fakir said, “I see God everywhere—everywhere! Last night I burned the statue precisely to see how deeply you see God. You were not ready to accept even bones. By your own logic it was clear you did not see God at all. That idol was false for you. Those folded hands were false. That worship was false.”

Ramakrishna got the post of priest at Dakshineshwar—twenty rupees a month. But in a few days trouble began. The temple committee grew upset. They met and said, “This man seems to be a problem. Only a few days—and big complaints about the worship.”

What complaints?

Very clear, quite right complaints. News came that Ramakrishna would smell the flowers before offering them to the image. News came that he tasted the prasad before offering it to God. They said, “What is this nonsense? Is this worship?”

They called him: “We hear you smell the flowers before offering them to the deity?”

Ramakrishna said, “I cannot offer otherwise. Who knows whether the flower has fragrance or not?”

They said, “We hear you taste the food before offering it to God?”

He said, “My mother did the same. She would taste first, then give to me. I cannot give without tasting. Who knows whether it is fit to be given?”

This is authentic—an authentic worship. But our worship is false, empty talk, deception. Nothing is seen there. We stand with folded hands in the dark. Words are false. Prayer is false. Love is false. And then we ask, “Is life bondage?” Bondage is not life; the false personality is bondage. That false personality, that everything we have made false—that is the bondage. Break it—break formality, drop it.

Live authenticity—live the living experience intensely. Begin to live in truthfulness. Then you will find small acts become worship. Getting up, sitting down—worship. You will find that taking someone’s hand in your hand becomes worship. A single moment’s loving gaze into someone’s eyes becomes prayer. Then you will see: He is present everywhere. His temple starts rising everywhere. Then in every particle, every leaf, every flower, his glimpse appears. Then all words become His.

One who lives authentically, relates authentically to life’s truth.

We live inauthentically; therefore there is no relationship with life.

For now, this much. If there are a few more questions in this regard, we will speak of them tomorrow.

One small point more, then we will sit for the night’s meditation.

With regard to meditation too—in the same context—understand whether it is authentic or inauthentic. Are we sitting with our whole being—or merely because others are sitting? If you sit like that—because others are sitting, because you came to the camp, because now that you are here you may as well sit—if you sit this way, there will be no movement in that meditation.

But if with your whole being, staking everything—who knows whether you will be able to rise after meditation? Who knows—this moment may be the last. And if this moment slips away, it may be lost forever. Who can say? So sit as if this could be the final moment.

Once... a young sannyasin came to his guru. In that ashram the rule was: when anyone came, first bow three times circling the guru, then touch the feet seven times, then sit and ask your question. The young man arrived. He went straight up, seized the guru by the shoulders, and said, “I have come to ask something!”

The guru said, “How ill‑mannered! How uncivil! Don’t you know—first three circumambulations, seven prostrations—then sit, then ask. Answers are not given like this.”

The youth said, “Not three—I will do three hundred circumambulations; not seven—I will touch your feet seven hundred times. But do you guarantee that after three circumambulations I will still be alive? Do you guarantee—do you take responsibility for my survival? My question comes first. Give me the answer first; then at leisure I will circle and touch your feet.”

The guru said to his disciples, “For the first time, an authentic questioner has arrived. There is no need even to answer him. His question is enough. It will carry him to the answer.”

So let meditation be so complete, so total, that it can happen this very moment—now and here. It can happen this moment, if your whole life‑energy gathers.

Swami Ramtirtha studied mathematics. He had a habit: if twelve problems came in an exam and it said “solve any seven,” he would solve all twelve and write, “Check any seven.” Always the same habit. However many problems the examiner asked, he would solve them all, and just as the examiner writes on top “ten given, solve any five,” he would write on top, “Ten solved—check any five.” He had that confidence they were all correct.

In his M.A. final in mathematics, he started working on one problem at seven in the evening. By three in the night there was no solution. The roommate said, “You’re crazy. Morning is near, and you’re wasting the whole night on one question! Who says this problem will even come? Think of the others.”

Ramtirtha said, “And if this does come? For the first time in the final, will I not have to solve them all? You think I’ll do only five and go? No—this I must solve. Now it’s not an exam issue. The problem that won’t yield has challenged my whole being. It must be solved.”

It was three‑thirty, then four. Only two hours left till morning. The whole night gone. The problem still unsolved. The friend grew anxious and said, “This is madness!”

Just then Ramtirtha got up, took a dagger from his trunk, placed it on the table, set the alarm for fifteen minutes, and said to his friend, “Goodbye. If this problem is not solved in fifteen minutes, the dagger goes into the chest.”

The friend cried, “Have you gone completely mad! What has this problem to do with such a thing?”

But Ramtirtha was beyond hearing. The alarm was set for fifteen minutes. The clock ticked on. The naked dagger lay before him. He began to solve the problem. It was a cold night, icy winds; within three minutes sweat began to drip from his forehead. Streams of sweat flowed from his whole body. Five minutes had not passed when the problem was solved! What had troubled him for six or seven hours was solved within five minutes. He wiped his brow and said to his friend, “It’s solved.”

The friend said, “That’s a great trick. Next time I get stuck, I too will set a dagger and an alarm. And who is going to stab anyone? The alarm will ring, and even if it doesn’t get solved, what’s the harm?”

Ramtirtha said, “You think this was a trick? It was not. No one was being deceived. It was certain that if fifteen minutes passed, the dagger would enter the chest.”

When someone stands before a problem with such totality—what status does the problem have? What power? When someone stakes his entire life‑force—what can oppose it? What problem can hold? What tangle can hold? What unrest can remain? What obstacle in life can stand?

Before those who stake their whole being on life, nothing has ever stood, nor ever will. All falls away. All doors open. All locks break. But we have no vision at all of living with totality.

Meditation can be a key only for those who make meditation a wager of complete authenticity and totality—who stake everything, all strength, all energy.

So let me say this to you: meditation is the key to all the treasures of life. But that key becomes available only to those who bring their full thirst to it, their full prayer, their whole being. It can happen today. It can happen right now. There is not even a need to do—while I am speaking, it can happen.

Now we will sit for the night meditation.

(This won’t be possible lying perfectly flat... it will be a bit slanted... it will do... like that...)

So find your places, because we will have to lie down. Quietly, absolutely no sound. Not a word. Find your spot. And tonight with your whole being—only one night today, one night tomorrow, then we part.

Do not laugh even a little, do not talk at all, because it will be harmful for you.

If the place is uneven, lie so that your head is toward the higher side. No one should be touching anyone. Move a little aside, make some space... move out a little... yes, if it is troublesome in the middle, shift a bit outward. Find your place silently anywhere; lie down silently anywhere.

All right! I take it that you have found your places. Quickly settle. Lie down quietly. Don’t roam here and there. Sit, lie down.

First, with complete authenticity—bring this feeling to the very center of your consciousness: “I am going into meditation.” With full strength, with your whole being, with your whole soul—“I am entering the void.”

This is my authentic resolve. This is not a formality—that I have sat to meditate. As if my whole life hinges on this. It is a matter of my life and death. Bring this feeling to the center of the mind. Then close your eyes. Let the whole body relax.

Close your eyes. Let the whole body relax. Such a wondrous night—surely something can happen. Such is your thirst—surely something can happen. Who can stop it from happening? Let the body relax. Close your eyes.

Now I will give a few suggestions; experience them with your whole being, then it will go on happening by itself.

First feel: the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... the body is becoming completely relaxed... let go as if there is no body at all. Let go... the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... the body has relaxed...

The breath is becoming calm... the breath is becoming calm... the breath is becoming calm... let the breath become completely calm... the breath is becoming calm... the breath is becoming calm...

The mind is becoming quiet... the mind is becoming quiet... the mind is becoming quiet... the mind has become quiet...

The body is relaxed... the breath is relaxed... the mind too is relaxed... now, silently, full of awareness, whatever sounds are heard—just listen... simply listen and do nothing... the night’s silence will be heard, the sound of the winds will be heard, the distant roar of the sea will be heard—just listen silently... listen, filled with awareness... listen... for ten minutes, listen in complete silence... listen to the sounds of the night...

Keep listening... listen to the night’s silence... slowly, the same silence will descend within... the mind will grow quiet... the mind will become completely quiet... listen... listen to the night’s sounds... even small, small sounds will be heard... notice the sound of the winds...

God is making many sounds; listen silently... as you listen, the mind goes on becoming quiet... the mind goes on becoming quiet... the mind goes on becoming quiet...

The mind is becoming quiet... keep listening... listen to the sounds of the night... the mind is becoming completely quiet... the mind is becoming quiet... the mind is becoming quiet... keep listening... as you listen, the mind goes on becoming quiet... the mind goes on becoming quiet...

Keep listening to the night’s silence... then slowly only the winds will remain, the sounds of the night will remain; you will disappear, you will not be—become one with life. The mind is becoming quiet...