Rom Rom Ras Peejiye #4

Let me tell a small story, and then I will say something on this.

You must have heard of Darwin. Darwin spent his whole life studying animals, birds, insects. From that study he also concluded that man is a species of animal, evolved from animals. His knowledge about insects, animals, and birds was so astonishing that he could tell the species of any insect and everything about it.

Once he was a guest at the home of some botanist friends. A prank occurred to them: they caught five or six little insects and moths, cut them into pieces, and made a new insect by joining the parts. Wings from one insect, the torso from another, legs from a third—pieces cut from different insects were assembled into a “new” insect. They were all experts, all scientists. To fool Darwin they created this new insect, thinking that when Darwin came they would ask, “Which category does this insect belong to?” Perhaps Darwin would be deceived and name a category—what a joke that would be.

Darwin arrived. After food and rest they took him to their laboratory and said, “We have caught an insect whose species is hard to determine. It is so unique that nothing like it has been seen.” Darwin went in. They asked him, “Tell us, which species is this?”

Darwin looked at it carefully and said, “This is humbug, sir.” He said, “This is no insect; this is a hotchpotch.”

If by mixing all religions—what people call synthesis—a religion is made, one would have to say, “This is humbug religion, sir.” This is not a religion; it is a hotchpotch.

And when one disease is dangerous, if ten or fifteen diseases gather together it becomes even more difficult. If a synthesis is concocted among all these religions it will prove more dangerous. It will not be a disease—it will be a great disease.

True religion has nothing to do with adding together all these prevailing religions; rather, true religion concerns discovering the relationship between one’s own being and the universal being. True religion is not in any organization, any institution or sect, nor in the merging of all sects and organizations.

The search for true religion is utterly private and personal, absolutely individual; it has no connection with groups or organizations. The moment a group or organization arises, the flame of religion disappears and only smoke remains.

It has to be so. Why? Because... have we ever seen organizations of love? Love is a personal experience, each person’s own intimate knowing. There is no group, collective experience of love.

So many of us are sitting here. It appears that we are sitting as a group. But if we all become silent and go into meditation, will the group remain?

No; each person will be alone and the crowd will dissolve. Whenever we become silent, we are alone.

That is why whatever is highest and beautiful in the history of humankind has not been known by crowds, but by individuals in their aloneness and solitude. Whatever is beautiful, auspicious, noble, true has been known by persons, one by one. A crowd has never known any beauty or truth—not yet, nor will it.

Religion too is an experience of the individual life-force. A person experiences it in his own private peace, in silence. And whenever we form organizations and groups, connection with this experience is lost; only some words remain that become slogans and flags, and people gather around them. Even these people do not gather out of love for one another; they gather out of hatred for someone else. In the world, all organizations stand upon hatred. Hitler wrote in his autobiography: if you want to organize people, either find a real enemy or manufacture a false one. Without that you cannot gather.

When Muslims need to gather they say, “Islam is in danger; Hindus want to destroy Islam.” Then Muslims assemble. When Hindus need to gather they say, “Hindus are in danger; Hindu dharma is in danger; Muslims want to suppress us; Christians want to loot us.” Then they assemble. If India is attacked by China or Pakistan, a unity arises throughout the land and people begin to say, “The nation has united; we have become one.”

This is not unity. It is only hatred towards the enemy standing opposite, in which anyone can gather. Coming together in hatred is very easy. If there is a common enemy, we all gather to destroy him. These are organizations of hatred. At the core of organization there is hatred, there is enmity—and that is why we gather. The organizations of religions too, however much they may speak of love, have hatred at their center. And that is why, while love is preached, the organizations of religions are engaged in killing and fighting one another.

An organization stands upon hatred. What has organization to do with love? What has organization to do with religion? What has organization to do with truth? And has anyone ever known truth through the power of a crowd? Truth is not something for which we take armies, the military, and attack. Truth is not such that if it will not happen alone, we will take five or ten people with sticks and then it will happen.

The experience of truth happens in aloneness—so alone that not only is the outer crowd absent, but even within the mind all companions take leave, the inner crowd goes away; no one remains inside—only silence; one remains alone. In that total loneliness, in that innermost solitude, a person knows his own soul, knows truth; and in that same solitude, that same aloneness, he is joined to the being of the whole universe.

There religion is known. Hindu and Muslim are not religions. Religion cannot even have a name. Religion is an experience, not an organization. Therefore, even if we lump all these together, it will be a hotchpotch, a humbug religion. This has nothing to do with the birth of true religion.

But seeing the conflicts among religions around the world, some social reformers have begun to say: let us bring them together. Those reformers have nothing to do with religion; they are only concerned that somehow their mutual quarrels may diminish. So they say: somehow let us put them together—four bricks from this house, four from that house; take something from the Koran, something from the Bible, something from the Gita, collect them and paste them together...

There is no meaning in that joining—none at all. In fact, if humankind is to be united, there is no need to unite Hindus, Muslims, and Jains; all three need to be bid farewell. If all these are sent off, humanity will unite—and in no other way can it unite, however many devices are tried. When we accept that Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Christians should be joined, then we are accepting their validity and begin to join them.

We have accepted the disease, and then we try to stitch it together. No—the need is to reject all the walls that divide man from man. There is no need to join them; no good will come from their joining.

And one who is truly religious certainly cannot be a Hindu, nor a Muslim, nor a Jain. How can a religious person have the convenience of being Hindu, Jain, Muslim? How can he have the convenience of identifying with a fragment? How can he have the convenience of standing against anyone? His consciousness will attain to non-opposition; in his heart the stream of love will flow; for him no one will remain “other,” no one as one’s own or another’s; no second will remain. Between two persons there will remain no walls of words and scriptures. For him there will be no temple and no mosque—because for him the whole earth will become the temple of God. He will begin to see the same flame burning in everyone’s heart.

It is those divided into religions who have obstructed the birth of religion. Atheists have not prevented religion from developing in the world. Atheists have done nothing so far. You should know: atheists have no organization, no church or temple, no scripture, no flag. They have never gathered and done anything. There is not even a single charge against atheists that they have set fires, burned houses, killed people, burned people. Atheists have not harmed religion. The harm has been done by those “religious” who are Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Christians. Why? By creating these divisions they have prevented the advent of that religion which can never be divided.

Do you think there can be many kinds of truth? Do you think there can be many truths about the soul? Many truths about God? Do you think Hindus have one mathematics and Muslims another? There was a time—here in India—when Jains had their own mathematics and Hindus theirs. What madness those days must have been! Can mathematics be different? Can chemistry or physics be different—one for Christians, another for Muslims?

No; when it comes to matter, truths cannot be different; so how can they be different regarding God? Even about matter, truths cannot be different—how then about God? Certainly, with respect to matter we have arrived at the search for truth; but regarding God we have stopped at belief—we have not reached the search for truth. Therefore there is division, there is difference; therefore there are organizations and sects, therefore partitioned temples. These are not to be joined; they are to be dismissed all at once. And the day they leave the earth, that day the greatest sunrise will dawn for religion. As long as they remain, an impartial search for truth is not possible. All these have their sides, their prejudices. Each wants that its side be proved true. And as long as someone wants “my side to be proved true,” he has no love for truth. One who loves truth says: I am ready to drop my side. However truth is, I am ready to drop my position and embrace truth. But the partisan says: my side alone is the truth; if truth exists it must be in this form; if truth exists it must be in this language; if truth exists it must fit the molds of these scriptures.

In the last world war, the Second World War, France was losing to Germany. A very great French general sought advice from a very great English general: “What is the matter? What mistake are we making?” The English general said, “It seems you go to war, but you do not pray to God.” The French general said, “We do pray; I don’t know what the mistake is that our prayers are not heard; we keep on losing.” The English general asked, “In which language do you pray—in English or in French? Because we pray in English, and as far as we understand, God understands only English. You must be praying in French; that is why you keep losing.”

These sects have even imposed molds upon God: which language he understands; which scriptures he understands, which he writes and which he does not; upon which people his special grace rests. Here in India people say his special grace is only here, and he has no glance for the rest of the world. He incarnates only on this land, nowhere else; this is a very holy land.

This madness—whoever lives anywhere in the world has it—that the land where he is is supremely sacred. And this has nothing to do with the sanctity of the land; it has to do with the impurity of our ego. Can the land where I was born be unholy? It must be utterly holy; that is God’s special land.

Bernard Shaw once said that it is wrong that the earth goes around the sun.

Now this is what science has established. Earlier people believed that the sun went around the earth. But then science proved that the sun does not, the earth goes around the sun. But Bernard Shaw declared that this is wrong—the earth does not go around the sun; the sun must be going around.

Someone asked, “What is the reason? On what basis do you make this declaration?”

Do you know what Bernard Shaw said? He made a very deep joke. He said, “I say the earth does not go around the sun because I, Bernard Shaw, am on the earth. Therefore the sun should be the one to go around. It is impossible that the earth goes around—because I, Bernard Shaw, am on the earth! Since Bernard Shaw is on the earth, how can the earth go around the sun?”

So can the land on which I was born be unholy? No; it is holy land. There God has taken incarnations again and again; that alone is the world-teacher; that alone is everything; the rest of the world is nothing. All these insanities arise out of ego, not out of understanding. It is our ego. And in the name of these religions, the egos of various communities have become centered. These should be sent away. What has religion to do with ego? Nothing at all. And if there is any relation, it is only that of an enemy.

Certainly, religion can be born—but for that the religions will have to go. Religion can come if religions go. And whoever is religious should help so that they go, so that they depart, so that no trace of them remains on the earth. Even their traces, their marks, are painful, unfortunate.

Therefore I do not say that these should be stitched together. Stitching solves nothing—nothing at all. See truth; seek it. These will dissolve; they should dissolve.

Why would I say that the Gita and the Upanishads should not be read! I would not even say that so‑called forbidden books should not be read. I would say: read those too. How could I be opposed to reading? How could I be opposed to learning?

My point is only this: read them as books, not as scripture. Do not read them as sacred, holy texts; read them as books. They are people’s experiences—understand them. But remember, their experience does not become your experience by reading. Their realization, their knowing does not become your knowing by reading. If this is kept in mind, what harm is there in reading? By all means, read. It is beneficial. These are the memories of humankind; certainly look into them—but with utter impartiality.

A Hindu can hardly read the Quran properly. A Muslim can hardly read the Gita properly. He cannot. As long as one book is sacred in someone’s eyes, how will he read another book rightly? The others become impure.

A Muslim caliph attacked Alexandria. In those days it had the greatest library in the world—perhaps no library that large has ever been built since. It was so vast that when it was set on fire, the flames could not be extinguished for six months. Handwritten manuscripts in the millions—gathered from all over the world—an astounding treasure. When Caliph Umar conquered Alexandria, the first thing he did was to come to the library door with a torch in one hand and the Quran in the other. He said to the librarian, “Friend, answer one question. These countless books—do they contain the same things that are written in the Quran? If they contain the same, there is no need for them; the Quran is enough. And if you say there are things in them that are not in the Quran, then I will say there is no need for them either, because such books must be wrong. Whatever is worth knowing and useful is all in the Quran. Nothing beyond it can be beneficial. In either case, I have come to burn this library.”

Only two answers were possible: either these books contain what is in the Quran, or they contain what is not in the Quran. In both cases he was ready to burn—and he set it on fire. This man considered the Quran sacred; therefore every other book became impure. And my point is: could such a blind man even have understood the Quran? He could not. A blind man cannot understand anything.

So whenever you are blind toward any scripture, you will not understand it. Blindness can be of two kinds: you go to a text with blind faith, believing it is God’s book and whatever is written in it is the truth; or the blindness of the atheist—approaching a book filled with dislike and hatred.

No—approach a book as impartially as you would life. Understand it. What I am saying is not “don’t read books.” I am saying: whatever you read in any book cannot be the truth for me or for you. Truth has to be discovered by oneself. And one who seeks truth on the authority of a book will go astray—because unless my consciousness is of exactly the same quality as the one who wrote it, I cannot fully understand that book either.

A thousand commentaries have been written on Krishna’s Gita. Now either Krishna’s mind was deranged so that he meant a thousand different things when he spoke the Gita, or these meanings come from the minds of the commentators, not from Krishna. There are a thousand commentaries—and they keep increasing. Whoever gets the itch of religiosity writes another commentary on the Gita. Whose meanings are these? Can they be Krishna’s? A thousand meanings! They are the writers’ meanings.

So when you read the Gita, don’t imagine you have read Krishna’s Gita—you are reading your own Gita. The words are Krishna’s; the meaning will be yours. And if you embark on a search based on that meaning, you will reach nowhere—you will circle around yourself. Meaning is always one’s own.

I am speaking here. I am under no illusion that everyone is hearing exactly what I am saying. The speaker is one; the listeners are many. Each hears in his own way. A Hindu hears in one way, a Muslim in another, a Christian in a third. An old person hears differently from a young person, and a child differently still—everyone hears in his own way.

When we listen, our own meaning gets mixed in; when we read, our own meaning gets mixed in. But we say, “This is Krishna’s meaning, this is Rama’s, this is Buddha’s, this is Mahavira’s.” And then we impose our own meaning upon them and start seeking. That seeking becomes utterly blind. There is a need to try to understand—peacefully, silently—but there is absolutely no need to cling. Whoever clings brings his search to a halt.

So what I have said is: don’t cling to the Gita, don’t cling to the Quran. Who has forbidden reading? But I certainly forbid recitation. Up to reading, I see the point; but I definitely forbid rote recitation. A mind that learns to repeat something again and again becomes inert. It loses consciousness, it loses sensitivity. Repeating the same thing again and again creates boredom. Gradually the repetition becomes a habit. Then it has no meaning; like a machine, a person keeps repeating it day after day.

So recitation is dangerous. For parrots, fine; for humans, dangerous. Let parrots recite—that is fine; but for a human to recite is not at all right. Understand something; understand it fully—with total awareness, with complete attention—fine. But to start reciting it day after day, like a memorized machine, is dangerous; it harms the brain. Anything you repeat again and again—your alertness weakens and a kind of stupor sets in.

A mother wants to put her child to sleep and she starts saying, “Munna, go to sleep; Munna, go to sleep; Munna, go to sleep.” She repeats it ten, fifteen times, and soon the child sleeps. If the mother thinks he has slept because of her sweet music, she is mistaken. Repeating the same thing again and again creates boredom. The child gets bored, troubled, fed up—and he sleeps because there is no reason left to stay awake. To remain awake, there must be some reason. You created boredom, weariness, a kind of distress; the little child, distressed, fell asleep. But the mother thinks, “My sweet lullaby put him to sleep.”

Anyone can fall asleep. People doze in religious meetings; the sole reason is that they have heard the same things a thousand times. It is natural to feel sleepy. There is no fault in those who fall asleep in religious gatherings. They have heard those things so many times—stories of Rama over and over—they know it all.

Watch a film once—you follow it. Watch it a second, third time—watch it ten times, and what will happen? By the tenth time you will sleep through the very film you enjoyed so much the first time. And if you are made to watch the same film five hundred or a thousand times, you will have to be admitted to a mental hospital for treatment. The mind cannot tolerate so much monotony.

So this tendency of recitation—getting up every morning and reciting some book like a dead machine—is dangerous; it is not good for the brain. Read, understand—but this business of recital is not beneficial at all. It will rob your brain of its alertness.

Peoples who become habituated to repeating things lose the birth of original thought. Original thinking stops. For two or three thousand years in our country we have not been able to think anything original. We write commentaries on old books, we read the old books again and again. Our brains have lost the energy from which the new is born, from which the original is born. We have lost it—because of this habit of recitation. And even today this habit continues.

So I say: read—by all means read the Gita, read the Quran. And why only these? There is much other literature in the world—read all of it. There are stories and novels—read those too. In all of them the experiences and realizations of humankind have been gathered. But after reading, do not get into the delusion—by memorizing them—that they are your experiences. First, know this: it is information, not knowledge.

Second, do not fall into the tendency to repeat; otherwise your brain will lose its own thinking forever. A repetitive mind is not creative; the repeating mind ceases to be creative, it loses all power of creation. Ask anyone to keep repeating something, and his creativity will be finished.

In China they used to give punishments. The Chinese are very clever. A thousand years ago they would not give the death penalty to the most dangerous, heinous criminals—because they said killing someone does not inflict great suffering. He dies in a second—so what is the great suffering? They kept him alive and devised new ways of giving pain. One method was to keep repeating one thing to him—again and again. A method of torture! Repeat one thing from morning to evening, again and again—panic will arise. Create any situation in which the same pattern is repeated endlessly.

They would stand a man in a cell, make a hole above, and let water drip through—tap, tap, tap. That monotony—tap-tap on his skull—continued twenty‑four hours a day. In three or four days, the man went mad, started screaming, pounding his hands and feet, banging his head against the wall—“What are you doing!” Because it kept going—tap-tap, twenty‑four hours. Just as people chant “Ram-Ram-Ram-Ram,” so too this “tap-tap-tap-tap” goes on.

It will hollow out the head, it will weaken the brain, it will cripple the mind’s capacity to think; it will petrify the brain. And the more inert the brain becomes, the more you will feel a great peace—like the peace in a cremation ground. For even to be disturbed or anxious requires awareness; even to be restless requires a mind. If the mind becomes inert, it is neither anxious nor restless. But inertia is not peace; inertia is death.

So recitations, repetitions, japa—all these are repetitive processes. They do not develop the brain, nor do they awaken consciousness, nor do they ascend to new heights of life; they simply make one dull. If dullness were peace, then these could be used.

Certainly, God can be available to all. Why? God is not something like poetry, mathematics, painting, or anything of that sort. One man is talented and paints; another is gifted in mathematics; a third in poetry; a fourth in science; a fifth in engineering; others in other directions. These are our particular talents. But God is not a matter of talent—God is our very nature.

Just as we all breathe, and no one asks whether everyone can breathe. The intelligent and the unintelligent breathe—how is that possible? The intelligent love, and the unintelligent also love—how is that possible?

As love is the tone of everyone’s life-breath, as breathing is part of everyone’s life—these are outer things; God is the very center of everyone’s life. Whether we know it or not, He is. The life within us all is what I call God. So He is available to all—that is the first thing. The question remains: can everyone know Him?

I say, yes, He can be known. Let there be at least one thing in which there are no classes—no shudra and brahmin, no chosen few and the deprived, no rich and poor. Let at least one thing remain classless. Everywhere else there are classes; at least let God remain classless. And it seems to me this is precisely the one truth that is classless—where talent does not matter; where it is not a question of being a great engineer or a great mathematician. No: you are alive, and you are eager to dive into this life; you have a thirst to know this life—that is enough, that is enough.

God is available; only thirst is needed—then, here and now, anyone can meet Him. God is not a special talent; He can be available to all. In fact, often those who are endowed with some kind of talent find it harder to find God, because they make their talent their God. They begin to live around their talent, and their ego gets gratified through it; hence their thirst to seek the very source of life often does not arise—or if it does, it remains very faint.

God is not a particular direction; He is the ground of life—not a special direction, but the foundation of all life. We all stand in Him. In the ocean there are small fish and big fish; sick and healthy; perhaps there are intelligent fish and idiot fish too—every kind of fish. But all are in the ocean. All live in its waters, and all have the right to live there.

Similarly, that in which we all are living is God. In Him we breathe, in Him we sit and rise, sleep and wake; in Him we are born and in Him we die. We are in Him. For me, God is not some person sitting in the sky; God is total existence. This totality of all that is—the sum of all—is God; and we are in it. Now, can all of us experience this God?

All can experience; each can. Thirst is needed! A vision for inquiry is needed! And some measure of this thirst is present in everyone. Why is there so much sorrow in life, so much restlessness and pain? Precisely because what we are meant to attain in life does not become available to us; and what does become available turns futile as soon as we have it—it yields nothing fulfilling.

Whether we know it or not, the search for God is on. By “God” I mean that point of fulfillment beyond which the search ceases—where no further seeking remains, where no desire remains. The ultimate state of wanting where wanting itself ends. We are all in search of that. One may call it God, another something else—it makes no difference. Some may call it bliss, some moksha, some life, some truth—the name doesn’t matter. But we are seeking a state where no further seeking remains, a point we want to reach beyond which no desire survives. That point is God.

Within everyone there is both seeking and desire. If one is willing to make even a few right experiments with life, to understand life, then surely anyone can arrive—anyone! There is no person so unfit that he cannot find God, and no person specially qualified that he must find Him.

There was a fakir in Tibet, about ninety years old. Many times people came and entreated, “Your life’s last time is approaching—tell us what you have known.” But the fakir would say, “If I find a worthy disciple I will tell—bring me someone worthy!” And whomever they brought, he would declare unworthy: “This one is unfit.” He would give some reason, ask a few questions, and dismiss them as unfit. When he was about to die, he sent word down to the village: whoever wants to know, come quickly, for I am going to die very soon.

A messenger spread the word in the village, and some twenty or twenty-five people came. They were fearful inside, thinking he would call them unworthy. As they arrived, he asked the first person, “Why do you want to seek God?” He said, “My wife has died; I am very sad. I think perhaps by finding God I might get a little peace.” The others thought, “He is certainly unworthy—what has this to do with God?” He asked the second; he said, “I have lost my job and I am very troubled, so I think if I turn my mind toward God, my worry may lessen.” Each person answered in this way, and the rest kept thinking, “Unworthy! What is he talking about?” The last man said, “As for me, neither has my wife died—because I am not yet married—nor have I lost my job, because I never had one.” “Then why have you come here?” “I just saw these twenty or twenty-five people going somewhere and wondered, Where are they going? So I came along to find out what happens there—what this matter is about.”

They all seemed unworthy, yet the old sage said, “Friends, I accept you all, and I will tell you what I have to say.” They protested, “But aren’t we unworthy?” The fakir said, “In truth, it was I who was unworthy all these days; to save my own face I kept saying there was no worthy one. I myself did not know. Now that it has become clear to me—now that I have known, now that it has been revealed, now that an experience has manifested before me—I want to tell everyone. And none of your weaknesses will be a hindrance. Man is weak, not unworthy. Your weakness will not be a barrier: man is weak, not unworthy. Now I will speak to you. Now I will tell you. Now I want to give and leave with you what I have realized. Perhaps—perhaps it may serve as a support for the opening of someone’s closed eyes; perhaps it will strike, it will give a shock to your closed eyes. Perhaps; I do not know. But now I want to say it: those who keep dividing human beings into ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ are in truth those who have not themselves been worthy.”

There is no division. Man is indeed weak—there are a thousand kinds of weaknesses. But however many weaknesses there may be, a spark exists within every person. The weaknesses may have covered it with ash, but a gust of wind can blow the ash away and the spark can flare up again. There is no one in whom the ash has piled up so much that the spark is utterly extinguished. There is no human being utterly incapable or unworthy of finding God. That light is within each; the search is possible.

One last small point on this, then we will sit for the night meditation.

Gandhi was in England. One of his close companions went to meet Bernard Shaw and asked him, “Gandhi is a Mahatma—do you too consider him a Mahatma or not?” Bernard Shaw said, “I certainly consider him a Mahatma, but number two. Number one is me! And there are only two Mahatmas on earth—one is me and one is this Gandhi. But Gandhi is number two and I am number one! That is the only difference; otherwise there’s not much difference.”

That friend must have been very worried. He came back and told Gandhi, “Bernard Shaw seems very egotistical. This is going too far—no one would say such a thing. I could never have imagined he would say something like that. He said you are number two and he is number one.”

Gandhi said, “It is hard to call him egotistical; the man seems straightforward and simple. He simply said honestly what his mind felt. Everyone feels that we are number one and all others are number two. Everyone feels this.”

There is a saying in Arabia: when God fashions people and sends them into the world—after shaping a person and giving him a push, saying, “Go into the world”—He catches his hand as he is leaving and whispers in his ear, “Let me tell you one thing: I have made many people, but none better than you.” He says this to everyone. It’s a running joke: God keeps making the joke and man doesn’t understand. He tells each one, “None have I made better than you.”

So if you have asked in relation to yourself, then it is fine; but never ask about someone else. Because it may be that the other also wants to ask about you—he just isn’t able to. This is not really a question—no question at all. Whoever has even this much of a question in the mind—“I am unhappy”; whoever has even the faint awareness, “I want to rise above sorrow”; whoever asks, “What is this life?”—there is enough intelligence within him. He can inquire, he can journey far. Intelligence lies asleep within all of us; with a little effort, a little resolve, it can be awakened and it can grow.

Now a few questions remain; I will discuss them tomorrow afternoon. For now we will sit for the night meditation—so understand two things about it.

About the night meditation: it is to be done when you go to sleep. The morning meditation is to be done after waking. The night meditation is such that you do it and, while doing it, quietly drift into sleep. Its usefulness is great: if we fall asleep in a truly quiet and silent state, the resonance of that state remains with us throughout the night in our sleep. If we go to sleep in anger, anger pursues us all night; if we go to sleep having suppressed some urge, all night we dream of that urge. If a person fasts in the day and goes to sleep thinking of food, then all night it is food, food—who knows how many invitations and what-not! At the moment of going to sleep, the point at which our consciousness is—almost the whole night it revolves around that same point. And when we wake in the morning, the very first thought that arises is inevitably the one that was last at the time of sleeping. The feeling, the notion, the state that is last at night while falling asleep is almost the first state when we awaken. For it is from there that consciousness sinks into unconsciousness, and when it returns at waking, it first regains the very state it had left at night.

So if, at the time of going to sleep, we slowly slip into sleep while in a meditative state, the consequences are immense. The whole night, the whole sleep, can be transformed into meditation—it does happen.

Thus, do this as you lie on your bed, right there on the bed.

First of all, leave the body completely loose, utterly relaxed. The body has a wonderful quality: whatever instruction we give it, it is always ready to obey. We say to the hand, “Rise,” and the hand rises. We say to the feet, “Walk,” and the feet begin to walk. We say to the legs, “Danger—run!” and the legs start running. If the body obeys the command to run or to walk, will it not obey the command to sleep? Certainly it will. We have simply never given the command, so we don’t know. The body will also obey the instruction to become totally relaxed; it will become completely relaxed. The body can become so relaxed that it is as if it has dissolved, become a void.

When the body relaxes completely, the breath automatically slows down. When we run, the breath becomes fast; when we are angry, the breath becomes fast; when some intense passion fills us, the breath again becomes fast. When we leave the body utterly relaxed, the breath too becomes relaxed, utterly calm, very slow.

On one side the breath is linked to the body; on the other, it is linked to thought. When your thoughts race intensely—in anger or in any passionate state—the breath becomes rapid. Therefore when the breath is quieted, thoughts within grow quiet on their own. So first, leave the body utterly relaxed; give it the suggestion: relax, relax. With two, four, eight days of experimentation you will find you can relax the body so deeply that even if someone performed an operation, you wouldn’t know—so relaxed can the body become.

Then, on the second layer, the breath will relax by itself, but still give the breath the suggestion to relax. As you give that suggestion to the breath, you will slowly find it becomes so calm that after some days of practice you cannot tell whether it is going on or not. It does go on—only very slowly. When the breath becomes utterly slow, thoughts thin out completely, grow distant; a thought comes now and then, then not at all—everything becomes still.

Then, on the third layer, give a command to the thoughts as well: be quiet, relax, fall into silence. When you succeed with the body, your self-confidence increases. When you succeed with the breath, it increases further. Then you are capable even of commanding thought: stop, pause, be still.

When the body is relaxed, the breath is quiet, and thoughts fall to zero—what remains? You remain—yourself. A lone consciousness remains, a lone awareness. Keep that awareness quietly awake; do not let it fall asleep. Usually, the moment our body relaxes, we slip into sleep, because our body never relaxes except in sleep. In truth, we have forgotten how to sleep—almost forgotten. Hardly anyone sleeps rightly. Sleep has virtually disappeared. Of the things civilization has destroyed, the most precious was sleep—civilization has destroyed it.

In countries like America, one person out of three does not sleep without medicine—because America is the most civilized country. If more civilization comes to America, then three out of three will be taking pills to sleep. For now we are very uncivilized; many of us still sleep without medicine. But we too are in the race for civilization; God willing, we will soon become civilized, and we too will sleep with pills.

Sleep is finished. Therefore your sleep never completes; so as soon as the body relaxes, there is a tendency to sink into sleep. Hence, remain a little alert. Continue the experiment in alertness I spoke of in the morning. Give the body the suggestion: relax; give it to the mind, to the thoughts—relax everything; but whatever inner sound is heard, remain aware of it. That will be the measurement for alertness—the gauge that I am still awake. Remain inwardly awake while putting everything else to sleep: put the body to sleep, put the life-breath to sleep, put thoughts to sleep—and you remain awake.

In just a little while, when all these have fallen asleep, an extraordinary sense of peace and bliss begins to be felt—an unparalleled awakening is experienced. For fifteen or twenty minutes, half an hour—as long as it is pleasant—do this experiment; then silently fall asleep, right there in bed. The whole night will pass in that quiet, silent state. And if the practice goes deep for a few days, you will know even in sleep that someone is awake—everything will sleep, and someone will remain awake within; someone inside will remain filled with perfect awareness. When someone remains awake within, dreams dissolve; no dream will imprint itself upon the mind. And if the whole night becomes dreamless, then in the daytime you will experience a peace beyond imagination. The night’s dreams agitate the mind far more than we realize; their effect remains with us all day. All day long, within, a cool and quiet center will remain—everything will go on, and inwardly something will be still.

So we will now do this as an experiment here as well. Then, when you return to where you sleep, do it there.

Is it possible to sleep here?

If people spread out a little, then you can lie down and do it; otherwise you will have to do it sitting. If you do it sitting, it is still necessary to go quite far apart, because even sitting, some people will topple over.

So go far, far apart. Those who can sleep should move off to a distance and lie down. The most comfortable will be to do it lying down, so that when you do it later in your room you will know exactly what to do. Those who have a little difficulty sleeping and feel better sitting may sit—but even they should sit far apart, because some of them will fall over; if they fall on someone, it will cause trouble. Move far apart!