64. At the start of sneezing, during fright, in anxiety, above a chasm, flying in battle, in extreme curiosity, at the beginning of hunger, at the end of hunger, be uninterruptedly aware.
65. The purity of other teachings is an impurity to us. in reality, know nothing as pure or impure.
Life is a paradox. To reach near you have to travel far, and that which is already achieved you have to achieve again. Nothing is lost. Man remains natural, man remains pure, man remains innocent; it is only that he forgets it. The purity is not disturbed, the innocence is not destroyed. Only a deep forgetfulness is there.
That which is to be achieved you are already. In essence, nothing new is to be achieved. You have only to discover, uncover, unfold that which is already the case; hence, both the difficulty of spiritual endeavor and the simplicity. I say “both”…. It is very simple if you can understand, but it is very difficult because you have to understand that which you have completely forgotten, that which is so obvious that you never become aware of it, that which is just like your breathing. It goes on continuously, uninterruptedly, but because it goes on continuously, uninterruptedly, you need not be aware of it. Your awareness is not needed; it is not a basic requirement. You can forget it or you can remember it: it is a choice.
SANSARA and NIRVANA, the world and the liberated state of consciousness, are not two things — just two attitudes, just two choices. You can choose either. You can be in the world because of a certain attitude, and the same world becomes NIRVANA, the same world becomes absolute bliss, just by changing the attitude. You remain the same, everything remains the same; just a change of focus, a change of emphasis, a change of choice, is required. It is easy. Once absolute bliss is achieved, you will laugh about it. Once it is known, you will not be able to understand why you were missing it, how you could miss it. It was there always just waiting to be looked at, and it was yours.
A buddha laughs. Anyone who achieves it laughs because the whole thing seems to be ridiculous. You were searching for something which was never lost. The whole effort was absurd. But this happens only when you have achieved it, so those who have achieved it say it is very simple. But those who have not achieved it, they say it is the most arduous thing, the most difficult — really, not simply difficult, but the most impossible thing.
These methods which we will be discussing are told by someone who has achieved — remember this. They will look too simple, and they are. To our minds things so simple cannot be appealing — because if techniques are so simple and the abode is so near, if you are already in it, if techniques are so simple and the home is so near, you will look ridiculous to yourself. Then why are you missing it? Rather than feel the ridiculousness of your own ego, you will think that such simple methods cannot help.
That is a deception. Your mind will tell you that these simple methods cannot be of any help — that they are so simple, they cannot achieve anything. To achieve divine existence, to achieve the absolute and the ultimate, how can such simple methods be used? How can they be of any help? Your ego will say that they cannot be of any help.
Remember another thing: ego is always interested in something which is difficult, because when something is difficult there is a challenge, and if you can overcome the difficulty your ego will feel fulfilled. The ego is never attracted towards anything which is simple — never! If you want to give your ego a challenge, then you have to have something difficult devised. If something is simple there is no appeal, because even if you can conquer it there will be no fulfillment of the ego. In the first place, there was nothing to be conquered, the thing was so simple. Ego asks for difficulties — some hurdles to be crossed, some peaks to be conquered. And the more difficult the peak, the more at ease your ego will feel.
Because these techniques are so simple, they will not have any appeal to your mind. Remember, that which appeals to the ego cannot help your spiritual growth. Only that which has no appeal to your ego can be a help towards transformation. But this is what happens: if some teacher says that this or that is very difficult, very arduous, that only after lives and lives and lives will you have any possibility for any glimpse, your ego will feel good.
These techniques are so simple that right now, here and now, the thing is possible. But then there is no contact with your ego. If I say that right now, here, this very moment you can achieve all that is possible to man, that you can become a Buddha or a Christ or a Krishna in this very moment here and now without losing a single instant, then there will be no contact with your ego. You will say, “This is not possible. I must go somewhere else to search for it.” And these techniques are so simple that you can achieve all that is possible to human consciousness at any moment that you decide to achieve it.
When I say that these techniques are simple, I mean many things. First, spiritual explosion is not caused by anything; it is not a causal phenomenon. If it were caused by something, then time would be needed, because time is necessary for the cause to take place. And if time is needed, then it cannot be the case, it cannot happen this very moment. Then you will have to wait for tomorrow or for another life. The next moment will be needed. If anything is causal, then the cause has to take place, and then after the cause the effect will follow,.and you cannot produce the effect right now without the cause; time will be needed. But a spiritual happening is not a causal phenomenon. You are already in that state; just a remembering is needed. It is not a causal phenomenon.
It is just like this: in the morning somebody has suddenly awakened you, and you cannot recognize where you are. For a moment you may not even recognize who you are. In a sudden awakening from deep sleep, you may not be able to recognize the place, the time, but within a moment you will recognize. The more alert you will become, the more you will recognize who you are, where you are and what has happened. This is not a causal thing — just a question of alertness. With a growing alertness, you will recognize.
All these techniques are for a growing alertness. You are already the person you long to be, you are already where you want to reach. You have reached your home already. You have never left it really. You have always been there, but dreaming, asleep. You can fall asleep here and then you can dream, and in your dream you can move anywhere; you can go to hell or to heaven or anywhere.
Have you ever observed that whenever you are in your dream, one thing is certain? — that you are never in the room in which you are asleep. Have you observed that fact? You can be anywhere, but you will never be in the same room, on the same cot where you are. Because you are already there, there is no need to dream about it. Dream means you have to trek away.
You may be sleeping in this room, but you will never dream of this room. There is no need, you are already there. The mind desires something which is not, so the mind moves. It may go to London, to New York, to Calcutta, to the Himalayas, to Tibet, to anywhere. It may go anywhere, but it will never be here. It can be anywhere, but never here — and you are here. This is the case. You are dreaming. Your divine existence is here; you are THAT. But you have been trekking long…. And each dream creates a new sequence of dreaming. Each dream creates new dreams, and you go on dreaming and dreaming and dreaming.
All these techniques are just to make you alert so that you can come out of your dreams back to the place where you have always been, to the state which you have never missed. And you cannot miss it, it is your nature — it is SWABHAV. It is your very being, so how can you miss it? These techniques are just to help your alertness to grow more, to help it become more intense. With the intensity of awareness, everything changes. The more intense the awareness, the less the possibility for dreaming; you become more and more alert about the real. The less intense the awareness, the more you drift into dreaming. So the whole phenomenon is that a non-alert state of mind is the world, and an alert state of mind is NIRVANA. Non-alert, you are what you appear to be. Alert, you are what you are.
So the whole question is one of how to change your non-alert state of mind into an alert state of mind, how to become more aware, how to get out of sleep and dreaming. That is why techniques can be of help. Even an alarm clock can be of help — just an artificial device, just an alarm clock. But if the alarm goes on, it can help to bring you out of your dreaming. But you can deceive it also; you can even dream about it, and then the whole thing is falsified. When the alarm goes, you can dream, you can make a dream around the alarm also. You can dream that you have entered a temple and the bells are going on. Now you have deceived the alarm. It could have broken your sleep, but you can change it into dream itself; you can make it part of your dreaming.
If you can make it part of your dreaming, if it can be absorbed into a dreaming process, then it cannot help you. You can dream anything, and then it will not look like an alarm. It will have become something else. You have entered a temple and the bells are….; now there is no need to wake up. You have changed the alarm, the real thing, into a dream, and a dream cannot be disturbed by another dream, it can only be helped.
These techniques are all artificial in a way. They are just devices to help bring you out of your dreaming state, but you can make them also part of your dream. Then you miss the point. Then you MISS the point! Try to understand this because this is very basic. And once understood, it will be helpful; otherwise you can go on deceiving yourself.
For example, I say, “Take a jump into sannyas.” That is just a device. Your old identity is broken; your old name becomes as if it belongs to someone else. You can look at your past more detachedly. You can be a witness. You are aloof, a distance is created. I give you a new name and a new robe just to create the distance. But you can make it part of your dreaming; then you will miss the whole point. You can still think in terms of the old — that the old man, A, has taken sannyas. You feel, “I have taken sannyas. ” “I” remain the old. “I” have changed my robe, my name, but “I” remain the old,.and the old continues. Now this sannyas is just something added to the old. It is not discontinuous, it is continuous. If it is continuous, if YOU have taken sannyas, you the old one, if YOU have changed your robe and name, you have missed the point.
You must be dead, you must not be the old now. You must feel that the old has died, that this is a new entity which you never knew, that this is not a growth out of the old. This is discontinuous with the old. Then the device will have helped. Then the alarm will have worked and the technique is useful. You are not missing the point. All these techniques are such that you can miss or you can use them; it depends. But remember well, the techniques are just techniques. If you understand the spirit, you may become alert even without any technique.
For example, the alarm clock may not be needed. Go deeply into it. Why do you need an alarm clock? If you want to get up early in the morning at three, why do you need an alarm clock? Deep down you know that you can deceive yourself, and deep down you know that if you really want to get up at three, you will get up at three and no clock is needed. But with the clock, the responsibility is put off. Now you will not be responsible. Now if something goes wrong, the clock is responsible. You can sleep with ease now. Now the clock is there; you can sleep without any disturbance.
But if you really want to get up early at three, you will get up early at three. No clock is needed. This very intensity to get up will bring the happening. This will to get up at three may be so intense, you may not be able to sleep at all, and there will be no need to get up; you will already be awake the whole night. But to sleep well the clock is needed. Then you can go to sleep. But you can deceive. When the alarm goes off, you can deceive; you can dream about it.
These techniques are helpful only because your intensity is low. If you are really intense, there is no need of any technique; you can be alert. But your intensity is not such. Even with the technique you may start dreaming, and many possibilities are there. The first possibility is that you will not believe that such simple techniques can be of any help. This is the first thing. Then there is no contact. Secondly, you may think that a very, very long process is needed, that it will come gradually. But there are certain things that only happen suddenly, they never come gradually.
I am reminded that Mulla Nasruddin was asked to give his blessings to one of his neighbor’s sons on his birthday. So he said, “Son, I hope you live One hundred and twenty years plus three months.” Everyone was wondering at this “plus three months.”
The son asked, “But why? It is okay — one hundred and twenty years. Why plus three months?”
So Mulla Nasrudin said, “I would not like you to die so suddenly. Just one hundred and twenty years, and suddenly you die? I would not like you to die so suddenly; that is why plus three months.”
But even with “plus three months” you will die suddenly anyway. Whenever you are going to die, you will die suddenly. Every death is a sudden death. No death is gradual because either you are alive or dead. There is no gradual process. One moment you are alive and the next moment you are dead. There is no time process.
Death is sudden; SAMADHI is also sudden. Spiritual explosion is also sudden. It is like death. It is more like death than it is like life; it is sudden. It can happen at any moment. If you are ready, these techniques can be of help. They will not bring it gradually; really, they will gradually bring you to be ready for the sudden happening. Remember this distinction: they are preparing you so that the sudden SAMADHI happens.
These techniques are not techniques for SAMADHI; they are techniques to prepare you, and then SAMADHI happens. So how you use these techniques depends on you. So don’t think that a very long process is needed, because that may be just a trick. The mind says a very long process is needed so that you can postpone. You can say, “Tomorrow I will do it or the day after tomorrow,” and you can go on postponing forever. A postponing mind goes on always postponing. It is not a question of whether you are going to do it tomorrow; there is only a question because you are not going to do it today, that is all. Tomorrow will again be a today, and the same mind will say, “Okay, I am going to do it tomorrow.”
And, remember, you never postpone for years. You postpone for one day because if you postpone for years you cannot deceive yourself. You say, “It is only a question of one day. Just today I am not doing it; tomorrow I will do it.” And the gap is so small that you never feel you are postponing it forever.
Tomorrow never comes, it is always today. And this mind which thinks in terms of tomorrow will ALWAYS think in terms of tomorrow. And it never comes, it has never been, it will never be. All that you have is this very moment, so don’t go on postponing. Now we will enter the techniques.
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