Samadhi Ke Sapat Dwar #3

O disciple, before you can become worthy of meeting the Master and of meeting the Lord, what were you told?

Before reaching the last gate you have to learn to separate your body from your mind, to erase the shadow, and to learn to live in the eternal. For this you must live and breathe in the All, just as That which you behold breathes within you. And you must behold yourself in all beings, and all beings in yourself.

You will not allow your mind to become the playground of your senses.

You will not keep your being separate from the Supreme Being, but will drown the ocean into the drop and the drop into the ocean.

Thus you will live in utter harmony with all that lives, and you will hold for all human beings a love as if they were your fellow disciples—students of one Teacher and sons of one beloved Mother.

I have heard: someone asked the Sufi fakir Bayazid, “May I ask a few questions?” Bayazid said, “You may ask; but do not think that because you can ask, you are therefore also worthy to receive the answers. You will ask—there is no necessity that I will answer. I can answer only when you are a vessel able to sustain the answer.”

Knowledge given to the wrong person can be dangerous. Power in unworthy hands is harmful—to him and to others. Even nectar becomes poison in an unfit cup.

This sutra begins:
‘O disciple, before you can be worthy of meeting the Master and the Lord, what have you been told to do? What fitness must be forged in you?’

People search for the Master without caring whether they are yet worthy to be disciples. People even seek God without making the least effort to grow the eyes that could recognize Him if He were standing before them. And the Divine is always standing before you; and the Master is just that near.

In this existence, for anyone whose thirst for truth has awakened, a guide is available very close by. There is never any lack here of those who will take your hand and lead you along the path. If you feel there is a lack, understand one thing: you lack the worthiness for anyone to hold your hand. Or perhaps even if someone were to hold your hand, you would shake it off. Or perhaps your hands are already held by others. Or your hands are so full—grasping other hands—that there is no way to take you on a journey while your hands are thus occupied.

If you do not find a Master, understand just one thing: being a disciple has not yet become possible. That for which you become worthy, that appears instantly—there is not the slightest doubt about it. If it does not appear, it means only one thing: we are unworthy.

What will be the disciple’s fitness by which the meeting with the Master and with the Lord becomes possible?

And if one cannot even meet the Master, meeting the Lord will be very difficult. For the Master is His messenger in this earthly realm, His symbol, His ray. If He is the sun, the Master is a ray of that very sun. And the one who cannot yet see even a ray—how will he encounter the sun?

Master means: a person in whom the Divine became visible to you.

If you cannot see the Divine anywhere, then seeing the Invisible will not be possible for you. Your first recognition has to begin in the visible—in some boundary, in something embodied, outlined by form. Not because the Divine is bound in form and boundary, but because your eyes, your way of seeing, your whole structure can as yet hold only the finite.

One who cannot grasp the Master, cannot understand the Master, cannot see the Master—seeing God will be exceedingly difficult for him. I do not say impossible. It is possible. A few have seen without a Master. But then a tremendous audacity is needed. And those who do not even have the courage to encounter a Master—how will they gather such audacity?

What is the qualification to be a disciple?

‘Before you reach the last gate you must learn to separate your body from your mind. You must erase the shadow and live in the eternal.’

We too live in the shadow. We live in the changeable. Life we have, but it is ephemeral—here now and gone now. In the time it takes to speak of it, it may already not be. Like one building a house of sand or a house of cards—such is our life, bound to the fleeting.

Consider: wherever you find your relish, what is there? There is something that passes. One clings to wealth, finds much taste in wealth. But what eternal value has wealth? What timeless worth? If you lay in a desert with heaps of money, you could not buy even a palmful of water. Its value is not real; it is imagined and dependent on agreement.

I have heard: a fakir said to an emperor, “You have gathered much wealth, but if you were dying of thirst in the wasteland, how much of it would you pay for a single glass of water?” The emperor said, “If I were dying, I would give the whole empire for one glass.” Then what value does that empire have whose full price could be a single glass of water!

One lives for form, for beauty—like a line drawn on water: now there, now gone. What seems beautiful today will be ugly tomorrow. What seems young is already moving toward old age. The body is a wave on water; any reflection formed upon it is only a reflection upon water. A slight ripple—and all is lost. In the body in which we see beauty—how much eternity is there? How long will it hold? And what does not endure—whether it ever was is hard to determine. Those who have known say: that which is, is forever, and will remain forever. What is now and is not tomorrow—understand, it never was. You were under an illusion that it was; for the true does not perish—only illusions perish.

At night you saw a dream; by morning it is no more. Why do you call that which you saw at night a dream? Because while seeing it, it was utterly real; not even a sliver of doubt arose, not the slightest thought that what you were seeing could be false or a dream; it was complete reality. If in the dream your beloved died or your dear one died, you wept—and the tears were real. They could be so real that even upon waking you might find your eyes wet. If in the dream you were a king, the joy you felt was no different from the joy you would feel being a king in fact. While the dream is, it appears absolutely true. Why do you then call it a dream in the morning? Because it broke—because now it is not. And what vanishes so quickly could not have truly been.

But there are a few who awaken even from what we call life’s dream. This utterance is of those awakened ones. When they awaken from what we call life, they are amazed and find that this too was a dream. In the East, on this soil, a formula of truth was discovered: that alone is truth which does not end in any state of consciousness—which is not destroyed. That which remains through every state—sleep, dream, waking, Samadhi, even Nirvana—untouched by the states of awareness, that we have called the eternal.

Until we find That, we are gathering pebbles in the name of wealth. Until we find That, we are playing children’s games in the name of beauty. Until we find That, we cannot even have any taste of love. Until then all is false; we are false. And this false man—built around change—this is what is called the shadow.

Understand it a little.

Often you meet your own shadow. Many times you say, “In spite of myself I did this. I did not want to, yet I did! I did not want to say this, and I said it!”

Freud made a great discovery. People say “the tongue slipped.” Freud worked deeply and said: even the tongue does not slip without cause. Even what you say by mistake is worth pondering—why did that happen? Behind it is your shadow.

You have built a false personality within. A child is born and falsehood begins. Tiny children become politicians. The child learns that the mother smiles when he smiles; when he smiles, she feeds him; when he smiles, she brings toys—so even if there is no smile within, he smiles. The lie has begun. What is not within, he shows without. I call this politics. The child has become a politician. He now plays what is not inside him. He knows that if he cries, frets, is annoyed, screams, the mother gets upset.

Psychologists say: a child’s crying and screaming is very healthy. Those who, in childhood, cannot scream, cannot storm, cannot express anger, become mentally ill lifelong. For crying and screaming is a deep process—a method of catharsis. When the child is sad, he throws it off: he cries, he screams.

Try an experiment with a child and you will be amazed. When the child is crying, neither scold nor pat nor explain; sit quietly near him, watch attentively—with love, with attention; do not stop him from crying, do not lull him by patting his head—that too is a trick to stop the crying; do not distract his mind by offering toys—that too is bribery; do not divert him by saying, “Look, a beautiful bird on that tree”—that too pulls him away from his natural process. Simply be quiet, un-angry—for your anger too becomes repression for the child; your cajoling and reasoning too pulls him away from his nature.

Just give the child loving attention, and you will be astonished by a unique experience. As long as you give loving attention, he will cry with an open heart, scream. He will notice whether you are attentive or not. Remain attentive and loving—after a while he will finish crying, become light, begin to smile, become cheerful. And such a cheer will come on his face that is not political—he is not smiling to please you now; this smile arises from the catharsis of sorrow. He has become light; by crying and screaming he has thrown it out.

How long will the child cry? Wait a little. How long? Let him cry. But this loving, attentive waiting is essential, because the child is very alert to your attention. If your attention slips, he knows you are neglecting him; your neglect becomes repression for him.

Psychologists say: latest findings show that if all children could be raised in such a way that when they cry, scream, shout, we can support them in silence, the insanity of the world to come would be greatly reduced.

Within you, too, crying is repressed, screaming is repressed. It has all been stopped, blocked. Therefore in meditation I insist so much: let it out; you will again be light and simple, like a child. But fear arises, because from childhood it has been suppressed. When you were not very clever, you still managed considerable cleverness, played politics with yourself. Now you are very clever. Now you know: if I scream, news might reach my village that I was crying there. Or even your wife might see, “You, such a macho man—crying like this!” The web you have woven around yourself has created a false shadow—a shadow personality. That false structure standing all around you—your shadow—makes you laugh when you do not want to, makes you cry when you do not want to, makes you smile when you want to cry—utterly deranged. It is with you twenty-four hours, sitting on your chest. Call it ego—there is no harm.

Psychologists say: because of this shadow the whole earth is going mad. The more civilized the society, the more the madness. The more uncivilized, the less madness. In truly uncivilized societies there is no madness. With civilization comes derangement—perhaps civilization is, deep down, the very root and base of derangement.

Why does derangement come with being civilized?

You are split. You become two. Over the natural in you, the spontaneous, an imposed, conditioned personality sits—and it drives you. Watch yourself for twenty-four hours and you will know: you are utterly unnatural, false—a drama. And if even this much becomes clear—that you are a drama—great understanding has arrived. You think, “No, this is not a drama; this is life.” There the mistake lies. If you can at least recognize, “Yes, I am running a false show—but consciously,” you begin to come near truth.

Jung also called it the shadow. It clings to every man. As your age increases, the shadow grows bigger, hard and strong; it engulfs you from all sides and the soul shrinks. A child still has a little soul; an old man—where? Yet we think the old have experience and understanding—this shadow is his understanding and experience.

Therefore Jesus said rightly: only those who are simple like children will enter the kingdom of my Father. You have all become old... a child begins to become old from birth. There are many ages of oldness: some are old in few years, some in many; some are small-old, some great-old. All are old. For from the moment of birth, the world of falsehood—people of shadow—stands all around. A child is born among them, and he never even knows.

It happened that on the banks of the Amazon, about a hundred years ago, a tribe was discovered. On reaching there it seemed the entire tribe was ill with malaria—everyone. All the children were born without malaria; but immediately they caught it, for the whole tribe was ill, and mosquitoes and germs were everywhere.

That tribe had no idea malaria was a disease—when everyone is ill, illness becomes normal. They simply assumed, “This is how life is; this disease is part of life.” When every child falls ill from birth, he never knows he is ill; he takes the disease for health. They live half-lives, incomplete, half-dead—but this is health, because there is no other standard to compare with.

Psychologists say: the whole earth is deranged. If ever a conscious being from Mars or any other planet came to this earth, perhaps we would come to know we are all mad. We become mad from the very moment of birth. All children are born healthy; then they start catching the disease. The father is ill, the mother is ill, the family, society, country, all humanity is ill. Germs of derangement are everywhere. The sick man born within you is your shadow. You clutch it so tightly you think it is your soul—then release becomes difficult.

The sutra says: ‘Before the last gate you must learn to separate your body from your mind. The shadow must be erased, and you must live in the eternal.’

Only when the shadow dissolves will you know that you and the body are separate. Without that, you cannot know who you are. A false unity appears—“this I am”—and your true unit remains unknown. Your body and your being are different—this will be known only when you know your being. Instantly you will see the body is separate.

But people try the reverse. They think, “Body is separate, I am separate.” There is no need to think; this is not the work of thinking, and this conclusion does not come by thought. “I am Atman, not body” is not a logical conclusion; it is an experience. No amount of thinking can produce it. First the experience, then thought. Remember: from thought no experience arises; when there is experience, thought follows.

You do not know you are Atman. You have heard from scriptures, sages have said so. We too have learned it—borrowed learning. That too is our falsehood, a part of our shadow. Ask anyone, he says, “Yes, I am the soul, not the body.” It is his shadow speaking; he himself is not speaking.

We speak truth too from the mouth of falsehood. Even our truths are lies—because we are false, whatever we touch becomes false. Like the story of Midas, who turned whatever he touched into gold—we are greater magicians: we touch truth and it becomes false. We take anything in our hands—and it becomes false. In our hands the Quran becomes false, the Bible becomes false, the Gita becomes false, the Vedas become false. In our hands we make Buddha false, Mahavira false, Christ false, Krishna false. Whatever we touch becomes false—we are false.

This shadow of ours—this false notion of being, “I am this”—to break it something has to be done. Thinking will not do. Why? Because thinking is possessed by your shadow; it gives you only thoughts that nourish it. If it is to be broken, thinking will not suffice; something existential must be done.

Hence my insistence on meditation. And not mine alone—whoever wants to take you into existence will insist on meditation. Whoever wants to take you into derangement will insist on thinking.

I do not want to make you a good man, for the good man too is part of the shadow. I want to make you authentic—not good or bad, those categories are futile. True, pure, unadulterated—not “pious” but pure; innocent, straightforward, simple—as Lao Tzu says: like a simple child.

Such a man is not born of thinking. Thinking distorts everything in us. Put a stick into water: at once it appears bent. It is not bent; take it out—straight. Not that it becomes straight outside and bent inside. Water cannot bend it; but through the medium of water, everything appears bent.

Through the medium of thought, everything is distorted. Through the medium of meditation, things appear as they are. Through thought, things appear as you want to see them—you twist them to suit yourself.

Remember: whatever you see in thought, you fit to yourself—and if you are wrong, all becomes wrong.

In meditation you see as it is—and you have to come into accord with that. In thought, all comes into accord with you.

In meditation you must come into accord with existence. Therefore meditation becomes transformation.

‘The shadow must be erased, and one must live in the eternal.’

How will this shadow dissolve?

Keep three things in mind.

First: remember again and again, “This is not I speaking—my shadow is speaking. This is not I acting—my shadow is acting. This is not I smiling—my shadow is smiling.” Let this remembrance be continuous; it will create a gap between you and your shadow. This very remembrance becomes the interval.

Second: this shadow of yours—which erupts here and there—it is better to let it erupt in aloneness rather than in relationships; otherwise relationships become tangled.

My observation is: in the twenty-four hours of daily living you gather some anger—just as one gathers dust. You bathe daily; but what do you do for anger? Dust collects—you wash the body, change your clothes. But the mind also gathers dust; in twenty-four hours it is natural that dust gathers.

What do you do about the mind’s dust?

It keeps accumulating; layers form. Then those layers begin to break off and fall—untimely, anywhere. Watch them. They are layers of your shadow—becoming too heavy to carry.

Have you noticed how suddenly you find yourself enraged? Or how the excuse is very small while the anger is huge? Where a needle would do, you pull out a sword. How does this happen? Where a needle would suffice, how did you pull a sword? Everyone can see it is excessive—only you cannot. The reason is: you do not care about the needle; you were only waiting for an opportunity, any occasion, any convenience—to rid yourself of that heavy layer within.

Homes without children—husband and wife fight more. With children, they fight less—children offer many chances for layers to shed. Someone weaker is needed on whom the layers can fall. In joint families, husband and wife often have little quarrel, because there are others for quarrel. Husband and wife are often friends in joint families—they share a common enemy against whom they fight together: the mother-in-law, father-in-law, or someone else. But when husband and wife live alone, trouble begins.

If in America there are so many divorces, the cause is not America—it is the dissolution of the joint family.

Where will the layers of anger go? They fall upon whoever is near—nearest. Only an excuse is sought—and we are relieved. But all relationships become distorted and toxic this way.

No, this is not worthy. If your body is dirty, you bathe in aloneness; you do not create a scene in the marketplace.

Meditation is the bath of the inner.

What gathers daily is to be released in aloneness, in meditation.

People ask me—as one friend asked today—is catharsis absolutely necessary? Is this purgation so essential—that we shout, cry, rage? Will meditation not happen without it?

It will not. If it could, it would have by now. It has not happened precisely because of these layers. And we find it difficult to shed them in aloneness because it seems irrational. If someone abuses you, anger seems justified; “He abused me, so I am angry.” But when I ask you in meditation to let anger be expressed, you find it difficult. “On whom should I throw it? No one is provoking me—where to throw it?”

You must learn the art. There is no need to throw anger at anyone. This empty sky lovingly accepts your anger. And the wonder is: if you throw anger at a person, anger will come back from there too—there is a volcano in him as well. He is just like you. He too is waiting; not only you. Such a meeting is apt for both.

So Buddha said: what will anger do? Anger breeds anger. The chain has no end. We do not see it, so we do not see the chain; otherwise why would we remain bound in anger for lives upon lives? The one with whom you fought in the last life—you are still fighting. The struggle goes on; a long chain is formed, links upon links.

Anger at another will not help. But release anger into the open sky; do not even consider the other. Attend to yourself: “Anger is within me; I will pour it into the void.” And the chest of the void is vast. The void does not return your anger; it absorbs it, drinks it. Therefore we color Shiva’s throat blue—symbol of poison-drinking. The Divine drinks all our poison. He is Neelkanth. He is present everywhere. Give Him all your poison—fearless. That poison will not harm Him; only His throat will be blue—and it will look beautiful.

In meditation, catharsis is indispensable; it is the inner bath. Throw anger into the void; sorrow, pain, anguish, worry too. Do not do it only in the mind—let it manifest with the whole body. For the body is also infected. You do not know, for we are so unaware of the body; the soul is far—of the body too we are ignorant. We do not know what is happening in the body and what we are doing.

Psychologists say: those who swallow anger spoil their teeth early. What has anger to do with teeth? Much. When you are angry, have you noticed—your teeth want to grind, to seize and bite. If you let anger flow fully, you will bite. Small children bite; women will bite. Men do not bite—out of ego; but they too feel like it. Behind us is the history of animals of millions of years. When an animal is angry, he tears with teeth—teeth and nails are his two weapons. Man has created other weapons, so both have become useless. But the body’s process is still old.

The moment anger comes, poison begins to spread toward your nails and teeth; the poison glands in the blood begin their work, running toward the teeth and nails. It knows nothing else.

You still have the body of an animal. Its whole arrangement is animal; it works as it once worked—when you seized the enemy’s throat with your teeth, tore his belly with your nails. Still your body works the same way. But now you use neither teeth nor nails. You have made more skillful teeth and nails—we have reached the hydrogen bomb. A long journey. But the poison being produced in you cannot be drunk by hydrogen bombs; it fills your body.

Wilhelm Reich would press the gums of people prone to anger, and the man would shriek and turn furious at once. Reich had to keep two men around for protection during treatment—for the patient, when filled with rage, would attack whoever was near—Reich himself. Two attendants were needed.

All this is inside you. I am not speaking of someone else. I am speaking to you—directly, personally. One feels like saying, “He is talking about others—and rightly.” There is no talk of the other here—this is addressed to you. All this must be released; only then will you become light. When I say in meditation, “Allow the body to become a little crazy,” I have a purpose. Wherever your body is holding anger, violence, enmity, how many poisons of hate—let them out. You will become light. In that lightness, for the first time you will know the inner bath.

Meditation is the inner bath. And catharsis is essential—only then the journey can proceed.

We go to a temple after bathing. No one asks, “Why bathe?” You could go without bathing; but then, though you visit the temple, you will not enter the temple. One who does not clean himself even a little to go to the temple, yet hopes the temple will clean him—he is naive.

We ask of existence—but we must prepare.

We receive only that for which we have prepared ourselves.

Outer bathing is fine; inner bathing is essential before going to the temple. Inside, you have gathered so many diseases! And when I say disease, I am not using a metaphor or symbol—I mean exactly this, literally—diseases have been gathered.

It is now known that fifty to ninety percent of human illness arises from the mind. The results, however, are in the body, because poison seeps from mind into body; it fills the body and produces far-reaching effects. In this experiment of catharsis in meditation, if you can participate wholeheartedly, your mind will be purified—and you will find your body too discovers new dimensions of health; many illnesses will suddenly fall with the catharsis—diseases that held you captive will suddenly depart.

For example, if you have asthma, it means somewhere the connection between breath and mind has become distorted—somewhere a break, a blockage. If you can practice deep breathing rightly, that blockage will break and fall. If you have persistent headaches, ninety out of a hundred chances are: worries have settled like worms eating within. You are weighed down. If those worries fall, you will suddenly find your head light, as if a lifelong burden has lifted, as if someone hammering nails inside has stopped.

Whatever is happening in the body has its threads in the mind; whatever is happening in the mind is linked to the body. Only if this catharsis happens will you know you are something else and the body something else. Why?

Because as catharsis happens, the thousand bindings between you and the body—formed through illnesses—will break. It is through disease that you are bound to the body. The primal bond tying you to the body is disease.

In our land we called it the chain of karma—the chain of sin—by which we are bound to the body. In new language we can call it disease. We have known in this country: we are in the body because we are sick; the day we are not sick, we will not be in the body.

Hence the ancient prayer of this land for thousands of years: “O Lord, when will there be liberation from coming and going?” Liberation from birth and death means: when will that moment arrive when not a single disease remains to bind me to the body—and my boat slips free of the body entirely? No rope tied to any shore. Then my boat will set out upon the journey of the infinite.

This has never happened, nor can it, without meditation. The more civilized you become, the greater the need for catharsis. Civilization will have to be thrown out—civilization is a great disease.

‘For this you must live and breathe in the All—just as all that you see breathes within you. And you must see yourself in all beings, and all beings in yourself.’

This sutra is precious. Understand it—and bring it into practice.

‘For this you must live and breathe in the All...’

We live in ourselves, fragmented. What will it mean to live in the All?

A flower has blossomed and you sit near it; the mind says, “Pluck it.” You are living in yourself. Such a beautiful flower is blooming—and only the thought to pluck it arises. Does no feeling arise to live in the flower? Such a beautiful flower has blossomed—let me peek into it, enter it a little, live in it a little. Perhaps then a fragrance of its beauty may touch me. Perhaps the freshness beaded on its petals may descend into me. To sit near the flower with a mood to pluck it means you do not care for the flower—you cannot live in it; you can only possess it around you, but you cannot enter the flower.

The moon has risen—have you ever thought to fly a little? Man has now reached the moon—but those who reach the moon still cannot take a flight to the moon. You can reach the moon; there is no obstacle. But to fly to the moon means: the moon has risen in the sky—let me be one with it for a while, live in it, travel with it across the heavens.

Forget this petty self here—fly far. Make a poetic leap—sometimes into the sea, sometimes into the sky, sometimes into flowers, sometimes into mountains, sometimes into a human eye! Enter the other—and live for a while in the other.

It sounds strange: how to enter the other? With a deep empathy you can. When you look into your beloved’s eyes, do not merely look—enter with him, go within. At first it may feel awkward, because fear has gripped us; thus we even fear looking into each other’s eyes. It is considered impolite to gaze into another’s eyes—unless there is very intimate closeness. Why? Because there is the fear of entering the other. The eyes are doors; peering through them, one can go in.

In the West they have devised new methods: gazing is one. Two people sit and gaze into each other’s eyes for an hour. Unique experiences arise—sometimes life-changing. For if you gaze for an hour without blinking, a moment’s glimpse comes when you feel you are no longer in yourself—you are in the other. Therefore we have built defenses around the eyes—that none gaze into them. If someone gazes, you consider it improper, coarse—and it is dangerous.

The eye is a very sensitive window; through it someone can enter. So we allow only those whom we want to enter to look through our eyes. But if you gaze into each other’s eyes, you can experience entering the other—like descending into a deep well. To know the other from within is a rare realization. You will not be the same after that; your consciousness will have expanded—an expansion of consciousness.

But you can gaze not only into persons—into animals, into plants; later into rocks and cliffs. And then you can gaze into the whole of existence—and live there. Until you learn this art, there is no way out of ego.

If you get busy dropping the ego, it will never drop. But if you learn the art of living in the All, one day you will suddenly find it is gone—you will not even know when. As a snake’s slough is shed somewhere, and only later does the snake notice where it fell. As a dry leaf drops from a tree and the tree does not know—resting in its silent peace, even the leaf’s rustle is not heard. When the new leaf comes, then perhaps the tree wonders: where have the dry leaves gone? So it is with one who learns to enter the other and the art of living in the All—little by little, he does not know when his ego is lost.

And if you come to know that your ego is lost, know this: a new ego has been born—“I am humble,” “I am egoless,” “my ego has vanished.” Who is saying this? Who knows this?

‘Live in the All; breathe in the All—just as all that you see breathes within you.’

Try a small experiment here in the camp—you will be amazed. Tomorrow morning, or at noon when a certain joy arises, when the mind is a little quiet, delighted, blissful—and cultivate a familiarity with your own mind: when it is cheerful and when it is not. The mind too has seasons. If you observe your mind for three months, you can even forecast your future—you can tell your wife on Friday morning: “Be alert—Friday mornings I tend to be a bit irritable.” And that season will come. If everyone in the house had such a calendar, the whole house could be alert—then there would be great joy, much fun; for if you know Friday morning the husband will be angry, there is no need for you to be angry—you can laugh. If the husband knows that on a certain evening the wife will cause a commotion—and it is natural—then I have nothing to do with it; it is like the menses—menstruation. There is no need to be angry—these are inner changes of the person, like the weather. Rains come—we do not swear at them. The sun rises—we know it will rise. Night falls—we know it will be dark. People too are like this.

So tomorrow, when the mind is happy and inclined toward meditation, do a small experiment. Pick up a small stone lovingly; hold it in your hand; sit in aloneness; fix your gaze upon the stone; then slowly begin deep breathing. Keep only one attention—keep looking, looking at the stone: when does the stone begin to breathe? You go on breathing slowly, eyes riveted to the stone. You will be astonished—the moment will soon arrive when you will feel the stone is also breathing. Your own breath has expanded; the stone too has a breath—very slow. Joined to your breath, it is magnified. Then you can sense it.

If you can sense breath in the stone, you will understand the non-violence of Mahavira. Then this whole world will appear filled with breath, trembling with life. Then it will become difficult to hurt anyone—even a stone.

‘Breathe as the All breathes in you; and see yourself in all beings, and all beings in yourself.’

Let this realization grow. It can happen in two ways. First see that your breath has entered the stone; then you can experience the reverse: the stone has begun to breathe in you. But we do not know the art of breath.

It is said of Gurdjieff that he would sometimes give shocking jolts. You sit near Gurdjieff—he was a very mysterious Master—and suddenly you feel as if he struck your navel, yet he never touched you. His disciples were amazed—what does he do? That blow goes very deep. They observed and found: he first begins to breathe with you—the rhythm, the pace of your breath—he makes his own. When the two rhythms become one, then whatever thought he wishes enters you, is transmitted.

You can test this. Whenever your breath takes on exactly the same rhythm as another’s, you have met within; now you are not two breaths—you are one breath; two breaths have become a single circular wheel. Now any feeling can be transmitted—it will enter.

This can happen not only with people, but with animals, plants, stones—with all. It is a little harder as we go below man, because we cannot join even with man; to join with a plant is a far relation. Yet the plant is part of our family—we too were once plants. But the journey is long; relations have become distant. We too were once animals; those ties too are distant now—long travel, and a language-gap has grown. We cannot join even with people; even with those we love, we have never experienced a shared rhythm of breath.

Experience this a little—and spread it a little. As it spreads, you will look at the sun and feel not only that you are looking at the sun—the sun is looking at you. Sitting by a flower, you will feel not only that you are near the flower—the flower is sitting near you. Not only you gazed—it gazed at you.

We have woven sweet parables around this. People get entangled in them because they cannot understand; and many truths of religion are said in poetry. There is no other way. Poetry is the language of religion; science is not and cannot be. It should not attempt to be—and if it does, it is inappropriate.

We have said: when Mahavira passes, or Buddha passes, flowers bloom out of season. We are saying only this: not only does the Buddha see the tree—the tree sees the Buddha. And what more can the poor tree do than, when Buddha comes near, become a flower? Flowers are the eyes of the tree—with them he will behold the Buddha. There will be a sharing; a union will happen. It is not necessary that flowers bloom out of season when Buddha passes—but they should. Even if they did not, they should have. Perhaps only those could see them whose attunement with existence was so deep; perhaps we blind ones could not. For in truth, even when flowers bloom, do we see?

The tree you pass daily—you do not notice when it was young, when it grew old, when it wept, when it laughed, when it was happy and danced, when it was sad, worn, poor—you do not see. You think it is the same tree! But all seasons come and go within a tree too; waves of feeling are within it. Sometimes it dances with joy—then to sit near it has a different taste. Sometimes it droops with sorrow, is pained and downcast—then sitting near it you will also become sad—you will not even know why.

But who cares! Who sees! The tree is far—who sees anyone at home! Husband his wife, father his son, son his father!

No one has any use for the other—each is closed in himself. No windows, no doors—shut. All rush, rush. Sometimes you collide with someone and for a moment you become aware of each other.

I was reading a psychologist who wrote something amusing—and worth considering. He said: if you love a woman and hold her hand for a while without stroking it, she will forget your hand is in hers. Hence lovers keep stroking, moving a little—thereby they keep knowing. A little collision is needed; something must go on happening; if all becomes still, we stop feeling the other. Some disturbance is needed so we know.

The sun looks at you; the trees, this earth too. All existence is as eager for you as you are for it. As your eagerness grows, its eagerness becomes revealed. Then a communion, a meeting, an embrace happens. The name of this embrace with existence is Samadhi. Meditation moves toward that meeting where union happens.

But if you are weeping, sad, broken, defeated—that meeting will not happen. Who wants to meet someone broken, defeated! To meet the unhappy means he will pour his sorrow and sadness into you.

Existence waits for the day you will come near, dancing, singing, filled with joy—then the meeting is possible.

All meetings happen in moments of joy.

All disintegrations happen in moments of sorrow.

Hence sorrow is so painful—because in sorrow we become alone; all connections break. In joy we are not alone; all existence joins with its whole celebration.

‘Do not let your mind become the playground of your senses. Do not keep your being other than the Supreme Being; rather drown the ocean in the drop and the drop into the ocean.’

You will drown into existence—and let existence drown into you.

‘Thus you will live in complete harmony with all that lives; toward all human beings you will bear a love as though they were your brothers in the Master—disciples of one Teacher and sons of one beloved Mother.’

A feeling of one family toward existence—a feeling of intimacy.

Our minds are filled with enmity—we are fighting. We are trying to conquer existence as if there were some hostility, some competition. Because of this we are unhappy. Existence suffers no damage—only we are cut off, fall apart, become strangers. Existentialists say man has become a stranger. No one made him so—he did it himself. Yet this existence can become your home—open yourself, and existence opens.

Remember a formula: as you are, so existence appears to you. These are mirrors on all sides; you see your own face.

I have heard: in the palace of an emperor a dog strayed in. The palace was made of mirrors—thousands of mirrors on the walls. The dog was in great trouble. He saw a thousand dogs on every side. Frightened, he barked.

Those who are afraid are the ones who bark—thus they reassure themselves they are not afraid, they are making others afraid. The attempt to frighten is the device of fear. Only the frightened try to frighten.

He barked—and not alone; all the dogs in the mirrors barked. He panicked. A thousand dogs—enemies everywhere. He rushed at the mirrors to attack—man knows only one way of security; men and dogs both.

Machiavelli said: if you want security, attack. Perhaps the dog had read The Prince. He attacked. But if you attack—will the world sit quietly? All the mirrored dogs attacked. That night the dog went mad—how could he not? In the morning he was found dead. There was no one in the mirrors—only his echoes.

The moods we assume toward existence—its echoes begin to resound. Look with enmity—and enemies rise all around. Look with friendship—and there is no enemy. You resound and reverberate; you keep hearing yourself—you live in your own echo.

This sutra says: friendship with existence.

This is the fundamental difference between science and religion.

Science fights—wants conquest; its journey is victory.

Religion does not want to conquer, does not want to fight—its ground is friendship. It seeks a love-relationship with existence. Its relation with existence is that of lover and beloved—not of enemy. The consequences are immense.

Go seeking a friend—and the whole existence will spread its hands of friendship. In that moment you come to know: you are not a stranger. In that moment you also know: the whole existence is the lap of one Mother. In that moment you know: you were not born without cause. In its exultation, in its celebration, in its joy you were born. You are part of its play of bliss.

Therefore we have called the world the leela of the Divine—His play of joy. We are waves in His play of delight, His expansion. But to arrive at the realization that this world is the Divine’s leela, we must prepare certain foundations. Among those foundations, remember this sutra.