Nirvana

Upanishad
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Chapter 4 : Separation from Dreams; Communion with
Truth

The sannyasin’s asana is without support.

Communion with the ultimate reality is his initiation;
separation from the illusory is the teaching.
Initiation is contentment; it is pavan.
Within himself he sees twelve suns.

These sutras are about the inner basis of the seeker, the
sannyasin.

The sannyasin's asana is without support.

Those who have set out on the search for truth have to become
insecure, without support. They have to give up all shelter; only
then can they receive the protection of existence. They have to
become helpless; only then the help from existence is available. As
long as you feel that you can do something, that you are capable,
as long as you feel that you have the means, the necessary
shelters and supports, you will remain closed to the grace of
existence. It is like when the rains fall on the hills - the hills remain
dry as the water flows away, down the hills. The hills are
themselves so full that there is no possibility for them to store any
water. The rains fall into the valleys, and the valleys are filled. So
whatsoever is empty is filled; whatsoever is full will remain empty.
This is why the sannyasin becomes independent, without
support, without shelter. This is the way he lives. This is the way he
is; without support, without dependence on anything, without any
security. Let this matter of insecurity be clearly understood.
If a man possesses wealth, he feels that he has something. If he
has prestige, he feels that he has something. If he has acquired
knowledge, then also he feels he has something. These are all
means, supports, shelters, and on the base of these a man can
prop up his ego.
The sage says that the sannyasin is without support. A
sannyasin has no means. This does not necessarily mean that if
he is naked, without any clothes, he will not have anything. One
who has become naked can make the very giving up of clothes a
support for his ego. He can proclaim to the world, "I am naked. I
have sacrificed even my clothes. I am a real sannyasin.” Even this
can be a prop to the ego.
But when you have something, you cannot stand before
existence as a complete bhikku; your pride and conceit will
continue within you.
The word bhikku means a begging monk. Buddha did not call his
sannyasins swami. The word swami is beautiful: it means master.
It is because of this that Buddha called his sannyasins bhikkus.
Bhikkus have only their begging bowls, nothing else. The bhikku’s
bowl, which Buddha gave to his sannyasins, was not only for
begging alms. Buddha also said that his bhikkus must understand
themselves to be like empty bowls and nothing more. Only then
can the supreme truth be realized.
It is very difficult to be without support. The mind says, "I would
like to have something to hold onto, some support, some help,
some shelter, so I am not alone and insecure. At least there should
be something to save me from danger.” And you are all seeking
these arrangements. You may be interested to know that the word
grihastha, householder, means a person who is in search of some
shelter. A householder is not someone who stays in a house, no. It
is someone who is in search of security; he can never live in
insecurity.
Alan Watts has written a wonderful book called The Wisdom of
Insecurity. Sannyas means the understanding that howsoever
much you may try to become secure, you cannot be; howsoever
much money you may accumulate you will remain poor, poor
within; howsoever much physical power you may develop you will
remain weak within. To save yourself from death you may plan very
carefully, but you can never really know how or from where death
will arrive; you cannot hear its footsteps. All your arrangements will
remain ineffective - because you will still die.
Sannyas is the wisdom which knows that despite all your
arrangements for security, there is no security. It would be worth
the trouble if security were possible, but it is not possible. You may
cling to the hope of being secure, but you can never become
secure. Life is insecure. Only the dead can be secure because only
the dead cannot die. Otherwise, everyone dies.
Insecurity is all around. We are all adrift in a sea of insecurity.
There is no safety possible, there is no boat nearby; you are bound
to sink. But you close your eyes and make dreamboats. You close
your eyes and imagine you have reached the coast - but this is
nothing more than self-deception.
The sannyasin has understood that whatever he may arrange to
be secure, he cannot be secure. However much he may try to save
himself from death, death comes. However much he may wish to
live, death is certain. If one cannot be secure by arranging to be
secure, then the sannyasin says it is better to relax with his
insecurity. He is determined not to try to make false boats. He will
not make any paper boats, he will not erect a house of cards, he
will not arrange for a sentry; he will not make such futile attempts.
Now he understands that there is no shore to the insecure sea of
life; sinking is a certainty. Death is unavoidable, so he is ready to
die. He does not seek any protection.
Those who are ready to be insecure suddenly find that they are
absolutely secure. They find that the sea is transformed, that they
are standing on the shore. Why does it happen? How does this
miracle come about? Someone who seeks security cannot find it,
but someone who is prepared to live in insecurity finds himself to
be totally secure. There is a reason for it.
The feeling of insecurity arises because of the search for
security. The more you are afraid, the more you will arrange for
security all around you. That sea of insecurity that I have described
is nothing but a creation arising out of your search for security. It is
a vicious circle: the desire to save oneself from insecurity creates
insecurity; when that insecurity is created within, the desire for
protection increases and that creates more insecurity. The sea
becomes bigger and bigger, and within you the desire for security
grows deeper and deeper. That desire for security is what makes
the sea look so vast.
The experience of the sannyasin is that he has stopped
bothering about security, so for him, there is no insecurity. For one
who is ready to die, there is no death. What can death do to the
one who is ready to die? Death can only do something to you if you
are trying to save yourself, if you run away and arrange to be
secure from death. But if you are ready to embrace death, how can
there be death for you? Death is not in death, but in the fear of it.
Because of that fear you die every day, you live in death. You
cannot live in life, you die a continuous death.
Hence, living without security is the state of the sannyasin. He
does not desire anything else; he does not ask for protection. He
says, “I am ready, come what may." He becomes like a dry leaf
adrift on the wind, going wherever the wind may take him. He does
not say, "I will go to the west, that is my direction," or “I will go to
the east so the wind will lift me high and enthrone me in the clouds."
When the wind takes him east, he goes to the east; when it takes
him west, he goes to the west. There is no demand to go in any
particular direction.
A sannyasin has no particular desires, neither does he have a
preference for any particular state. He is open to whatever
happens. In such a life, all unhappiness disappears. So Alan Watts
has recommended the "wisdom of insecurity.” Those who are
intelligent are ready for insecurity, and only in this way do they
become secure. There is no one as secure as a sannyasin, and yet
who makes fewer arrangements for his security than a sannyasin?
And there is no one as insecure as a family man because nobody
hankers more for security than a family man.
“He has no support.” It is a wonderful statement. The sannyasin
has no support. When a person gathers enough courage to be
without any protection, he immediately receives the support and
protection of existence. Existence helps you when you are no
longer in the delusion that you can help yourself. When the
delusion about being able to do things yourself has disappeared,
when you have ceased to consider yourself the doer, in that very
moment existence takes care. The power of existence enters every
particle of your body. But you go on depending upon yourself,
thinking that you will be able to save yourself.
Under the spot where you are sitting right now, a minimum of ten
dead human bodies must be there. There is no part of the earth
where at least ten bodies are not buried. I am talking only about
human bodies, animals are not counted. There are the ashes of ten
bodies under you. When they were alive, they also thought in the
same way as you are now thinking while sitting on top of them.
Even after you die, whoever sits in the place above where you are
buried will think in the same way. But you do not realize that by
doing something, nothing happens - so why not do something
toward non-doing?
To become supportless means to live without any help or the
expectation of any help. It is to say, "I will dare to do nothing.
Whatever existence wishes, I am ready for it. Even if it destroys me
here and now, that is my goal."

Communion with the ultimate reality is his initiation...

“To be in communion is the initiation...” These aphorisms are like

the formulae in chemistry. That is why I say that the Upanishads
are telegraphic. The sage says that communion with the ultimate
reality is the initiation. To be in union with existence is the initiation.
To make a bridge to God, making a way to and from God is the
initiation. One who is initiated understands, “I will no longer live for
myself. I will live in union with the infinite, from which I was born
and to which I will again return. Now I do not consider myself to be
separate. I will not live like a separate drop, but in union with the
ocean"
It is dangerous to be one with the ocean - because then the drop
is lost. But the danger is superficial: the drop disappears, but in
another sense it becomes the ocean. The partial is left and the total
meets with it. What is needed is the courage to break your separate
boundaries.
If you want to make the open space within a room one with the
sky, then the walls of the room will have to be pulled down. If you
understand the walls to be the room, then you will feel that you
have lost everything by pulling down the walls. But if you
understand the sky to be your home, then you will find that you
have gained much more. Everything depends on your
understanding.
If you have understood the boundaries of your ego to be your
self, then you will feel that you are coming to an end. But if you
have understood that the emptiness, the consciousness, is
surrounded by your ego, then on dropping those ego-walls, on
dropping your ego, you will find that you have become one with the
infinite. Then you have gained the infinite. Nothing is lost,
everything is gained.
Communion with the whole is the initiation. Such a communion
- where the walls of your ego drop and you are united with the
infinite sky, where the drop gives up its boundaries - is one step in
a great adventure. You may call it a misadventure because your
mental state is such that you believe your boundaries to be your
existence. Not the one that is confined within the boundaries but
the boundaries themselves have become your existence. To you,
it will look like a death to dissolve your boundaries and be lost in
the infinite. Jesus said that whosoever saves himself will lose
himself - but for one who has lost his ego there is no way of being
lost.
One night, a youth named Nicodemus went to Jesus and told
him that he was prepared to give up everything if he would be
accepted by Jesus. Jesus asked, “Are you prepared to also give up
your self?” The youth replied, "No! - but I am prepared to give up
everything else that belongs to me.”
Jesus then told him that he should go back and return only on
that day when he was prepared to give up his self. Jesus was not
concerned with anything that belonged to the youth, but with his
self. As long as one does not give up the self, there is no possibility
of a communion, and no possibility of any initiation.
It is symbolic that we change the name when someone becomes
a sannyasin. The idea behind this is to make the seeker break the
identity with his past, with his old self. The boundaries by which he
was known, the name by which he was called until yesterday, have
to be broken. His clothes are changed so his image will be
changed. His image - the clothes, the style, the manners that he
felt he was - have to disintegrate. The transformation begins from
the outside because you live on the outside. Someone who doesn’t
have the courage to change even the outside will find it difficult to
prepare himself for the inner change.
So many people come to me: they say that clothes are only
external and the change has to be within. I tell them, “If you don’t
even have the courage to change to sannyas clothes, how will you
be able to change within?” I also know that by changing clothes
nothing is changed, but when you do not even show the courage
to change your clothes, how am I to believe that you can transform
your soul? It is easy to deceive others that you have transformed
your soul because nobody can judge from the outside whether
someone is transforming himself or not. Even he himself will not be
able to know whether transformation is happening. But the clothes
can be indicative.
Whosoever is ready for transformation can begin from
anywhere, but it is difficult to begin from within because you do not
know what within is. When you eat food, you do not say that the
food is from the outside, so why eat at all? When you want to drink
water, you do not say that water is from the outside, so how can it
quench the thirst within? This you do not say. But when the clothes
are to be changed at the time of taking sannyas, you argue, “What
can such a change of clothes do? Clothes are outside."
 What you are now is a mixture of everything that is outside; you
do not know what is within. The search is to find what is within. Your
image has to be shattered, the ego-self has to be broken. It is better
to begin on the surface, where you are living. You do not know what
living within means. The initiation will be fruitful only if the strings
within are tuned, are brought into harmonious communion with the
infinite.
When you sit by the sea be silent for a while, and within a short
time the difference between you and the sea will drop. When you
lie under the open sky be silent, and the distinction between you
and the stars will slowly drop. All distance and separation is
because of your thinking. Your alienation from the world and its
objects is because of your thinking. Thoughtlessness, no-thought,
leads to communion. Whenever you become thoughtless you will
be in communion, one with the existence. If you sit under a tree
and become thoughtless, empty, then the tree and the observer of
the tree will not remain two; the observed and the observer will
become one. The seer and what is seen will become one. If you
can experience, even for a moment, that you and the hot sun that
surrounds you are one, that you and the tree that shades you are
one, that you and the clouds floating in the sky are one, then there
is communion.
But this communion is not to be imagined. It cannot be brought
about by thinking. You may think that you are in communion, but
that is not communion. While sitting under a tree you can think that
you and the tree are one, but then there will be no communion
because the thinker is still there. The one who says, “I am one,” the
one who persuades himself that “I am one,” is the mind. Persuasion
is needed only when there is no real experience of oneness.
But if you can become thoughtless under a tree, then suddenly
an experience will dawn on you that you are one. It will not be a
thought, it will be experienced by every cell of your being. When
the leaves of the tree float in the air, you will feel that you also are
floating. When the buds open into flowers, you will feel that you are
flowering. When the perfume of the flowers fills the air, you will feel
that it is your perfume. This will not be a thought but an experience,
an experience of your being. When you feel this with your whole
being, on that day is your initiation.
Communion is the initiation. While sitting or standing, in every
breath, in every particle and cell of your body that communion is
felt. All is one. The enemy who may thrust a dagger in your heart
is also part of you, the hand thrusting the dagger is yours. This
communion is initiation.

The sage says:

Communion with the ultimate reality is his initiation - separation

from the illusory is the teaching.

Communion with what, and separation from what? Separation

from what we are not and communion with what we are; separation
from that which is a dream and communion with the truth;
separation from the world of thought -the world that is projected by
you - and communion with the existential world that existed before
you were born and that will be after you are gone.
You all live in a world made by you, a world of your own. Pearl
S. Buck wrote a book about her remembrances of life, My Several
Worlds. The name of the book is very apt because every human
being is living in his or her own separate world. If there are seven
people living in a house, there will be seven worlds in that house.
The world of the son cannot be the world of the father; that is why
there are conflicts and quarrels in a family. If there are seven worlds
living in a house, there are bound to be quarrels and conflicts. A
house is very small, clashing is a certainty. They are bound to
trespass each other’s worlds. The world of the father would like to
prove itself superior to that of the son, and the son's world would
like to prove itself superior to that of the father; the wife's world
would like to conquer the world of the husband. At this time in the
world, there are hundreds of millions of worlds. The world that I
mean is not the one that is outside you but the world that you build
in your mind. It is your own construction.
Imagine that you are all sitting under a tree. One of you is a
carpenter, another is a painter, the third is a poet, the fourth a lover
who has failed with his beloved and the fifth a lover who is together
with his beloved. For the carpenter the tree is nothing but potential
furniture. The tree is the same tree, but the carpenter is sitting in
the world of furniture.
A cobbler is not able to see anything about you but your shoes;
he can recognize you by the size of your shoes. A tailor knows you
by the measurement of your clothes. A cobbler does not have to
see your face to judge your financial condition; he can judge it from
the condition of your shoes. He does not need to see your face or
your bank balance - the condition of your shoes will tell him your
condition; he has his own world.
The tree is just potential furniture for the carpenter, nothing
more. For him, fruit does not grow on that tree, furniture grows. It
is his own world.
Beside him is sitting a painter. For him, the tree is just a play of
colors; there are so many trees there. To the ordinary person all
trees look alike - they are green - but the painter sees hundreds of
different shades of green in them. This can be seen only by a
painter, not by the ordinary person for whom green is just green,
with no distinctions. But a painter knows that no two trees are the
same color; every tree has its own shade of green. So what a
painter is able to see in a tree, others cannot see. He sees the
individuality of every leaf.
A poet is sitting near the painter. For him, the tree becomes a
poem. In a few moments, the tree disappears and he is lost in the
world of poetry. We will never be able to know on what flights of
imagination he rides. He has his own world.
Under that tree laden with fruit and flowers, where the flowers
are showering like rain, sits a lover who has not been lucky enough
to win his beloved - the flowers will appear to be so many thorns to
him. The flowers will appear as if bathed in gloom as if the tree is
weeping and dying. He is not concerned with the tree at all; he is
projecting and extending his inner world onto the outer world. A full-
moon night would also appear gloomy to him. But another lover
who is successful, to him, even the dark side of the moon will
appear to be a full-moon night, bright and exciting.
We are always projecting our inner world outside, everywhere,
all around. Every human being has a seed within him of his inner
world, which sprouts and extends to cover the surrounding world.
The sage says; ...separation from the illusory.. We always hear
that the sannyasin renounces "the world,” but we do not even know
what is meant by this word. This outward projection of a world by
every human being is his own dreamworld. It is false; it is your
projection and it will die with you. One world dies with the death of
every human being. The world that existed before him remains, but
the world that was his creation, his dreamworld, dies.
Giving up the world does not mean giving up the stones or the
trees or the people you know. Giving up the world means giving up
that world which is your projection, which is of your own making. It
means seeing everything as it is, without contributing anything of
your own. If a sannyasin had been sitting under that tree, he would
not have projected anything onto the tree because he has no world
of his own. Sannyasin means one who has no world of his own to
project. He sees everything as it is. He contributes nothing from his
side; he imposes nothing of his own.
Projecting anything on anybody is violence. If you impose your
gloom on a tree so that the tree appears gloomy to you, it is a
violation of the tree. If you have won a lottery today and you project
your cheerfulness on the moon, it will appear to you to be filled with
great joy and cheer. But that too is violence because you are
projecting something and it is false.
The sages say. “Detachment is our teaching.” The only teaching
of the sages is that you should become separate from your
projections. There is one world that is the extension of the ultimate
truth and another that is the extension of each individual. If your
extension of the world drops, you will be in communion with the
world of ultimate truth.
 I had a friend who was a renowned professor of economics in
the university. He had been a professor at Oxford University and
had worked as a professor in several universities in India. I first met
him under strange circumstances.
I was walking along a road. It was twilight; the sun had almost
gone and the darkness was setting in. As soon as I saw him, he
took a whistle out of his pocket and blew it. Out of another pocket
he took a knife. I asked him what he was doing. He said, "Keep
away!” I asked him again what was the matter. As we talked, we
became closer, and soon we became friends. I found out that for
the past two years he had been in constant fear of others; he felt
that everybody wanted to kill him. Whenever he was alone and he
saw someone coming near him, he would blow the whistle and take
out his knife. He always kept these two things with him for self-
protection. He blew the whistle so people around him would know
that he was in danger.
This man was living in his own world of murderers - his own
mental projection. Nobody had any reason to kill him. Why should
anyone kill a professor? There must be some reason to kill; one
must deserve to be killed. Who would kill a harmless professor? He
could not hurt anybody. The day people begin killing professors will
be a sad day. There is not a more helpless being than a professor.
I carefully explained to him that there was no reason for anybody
to kill him, but he always felt that the whole world was going to kill
him. He would find reasons for it. He would watch a person
approach him, looking into the eyes of the person to see if they
were suspicious. The way he looked at the people and the way he
stood before them made them suspicious! He behaved in such a
way that nobody could remain at ease in his presence. The more
the other person became uneasy, the more fearful the professor
would become. This created a vicious circle. In a short time, the
professor would begin to see the person as some kind of enemy.
You live in your self-made world. Detachment is the teaching,
the separation from your own created world. This world is
psychological - a derangement, an insanity, a maze. The sages tell
us to become separate from this world. Only after that separation
is communion with the whole possible. When your projected
dreams and delusions drop, communion with existence is possible.

Initiation is contentment; it is pavan.

There are two things in this: one is that initiation is contentment.

It would not have occurred to you that communion with existence
is the only contentment. Any separation from existence brings
discontent. Just as a child becomes discontented when he is
separated from his mother, when we are separated from the
existence we also become discontented. In that state of discontent
you are trying in many ways to achieve contentment, but they all
fail and bring frustration.
The re-union, or the communion, with the original source from
which you have been separated brings contentment. So no one is
as happy and contented as the sannyasin. No one can be. All
others are bound to remain discontented; whatever they may
achieve, discontent will continue. You may be a rich man or a poor
man, you may be a king or a beggar, but discontent will follow you
like a shadow wherever you go. There is only one place where
discontent cannot follow and that is the place where there is
communion with existence.
There are many reasons for this. First, you have never asked
yourself why you are discontented. When you see a beautiful car
passing on the road, you imagine that if you owned that car, you
would be content. When you see a palace, you feel that if that
palace were yours, you would be content. If you see an emperor,
you feel that if you had his throne, you would be content. But you
have never asked yourself what the reason for your discontent is.
Are you really discontented because you have no car or no palace
or because you are not an emperor? If you had these things, would
you be content? You might say that it cannot be decided just by
thinking; you would have to possess these things. Only then could
you know if having them would make you content.
 But there is another way. Look at the faces of the people sitting
in the car or living in the palace. Study them closely, follow their
lives and ask them whether they are content. They all felt the same
way once - that they would be content if they had a car or a palace
or a new job. But even after enjoying these luxuries for some time,
contentment is nowhere to be found. In this way, days and years of
life pass by in discontent. Just like a river getting lost in a desert,
your lives also are lost, unfulfilled.
You have never really reflected upon the reason for your
discontent. The only reason is that you have been uprooted, you
do not know where your roots are. You are not able to feel your
relationship with the source from where your life comes. You have
become imprisoned within your own mental world. You live in your
thoughts. Your connection with the existential, with the authentic
source, has been broken. Thinking is of no value, only existence is
of value. You will have to move back to the source and live there.
The sage says: Initiation is contentment... As soon as there is
communion with the whole, even if only for a moment, there is a
showering of contentment. Discontent is gone forever; you cannot
find it even if you search for it.
Another thing the sage says is that initiation is pavan, holy. The
word holy is very beautiful. It does not only mean pure, although
that meaning is given in the dictionaries. Holy means pure, but with
a difference. What is pure can become impure. Holy means that
which has no possibility of becoming impure. Holy is that whose
very nature is purity. For example, gold can also be impure when it
is mixed with other metals, so gold can be pure and can also be
impure. But the sky is holy: there is no way of making it impure.
You cannot mix impurities with the sky. Thus: Initiation is
contentment; it is pavan, holy.
After initiation, there is no more possibility of becoming impure.
The sannyasin cannot become impure; he is holy. Once the
communion with existence has happened, there is no possibility of
becoming impure.
A Buddhist bhikku, a sannyasin, once asked permission from
Buddha to stay the monsoon with a prostitute who had invited him.
The other bhikkus became uneasy. The prostitute was very
beautiful: even kings had to stand in line at her door. One of the
bhikkus told Buddha that it was not proper to give such permission:
if a bhikku remains at the residence of a prostitute for four months,
he is bound to become impure.
Buddha said, “I have allowed him to do it because he has
become holy.”
If he had been just pure, Buddha would not have permitted it.
The questioning bhikku then asked Buddha, “If I were invited by
a prostitute, would I also be allowed to go?"
Buddha said, “You are neither holy nor likely to get an invitation
from a prostitute! You are asking for an invitation. You are actually
inviting the prostitute. No, you would not be allowed to go.”
It was natural that the other bhikkus were disturbed. For four
months they tried to find out what the bhikku staying with the
prostitute was doing. They tried to look through the doors and
windows, and tried to get news from other sources. Many rumors
were spread. News was brought to Buddha by different
messengers that the bhikku had been ruined by her. Buddha
listened to these rumors without reply.
After four months, when the bhikku came back, he was not
alone. He came with the prostitute who then became a female
bhikku, a sannyasin.
If purity is in contact with impurity it can become impure: but if
the holy comes into contact with impurity, the impure will become
holy. Holiness is like the famous alchemist’s stone of legend that
could change baser metals into gold simply by touch. Initiation is
contentment; it is pavan.
One word for pavan in English is pure, the other holy. Pure does
not convey the true meaning of the word pavan; its real meaning is
holy, sacred.
There is no way of touching the sacred. It cannot be touched; it
is like fire. Fire cannot be made impure because anything that is
put in it will burn and turn to ashes, leaving the fire holy, untouched,
sacred. So fire can never be described as impure. Even when a
dead body is burning, the flames of the fire do not become impure.
Impurity cannot make it impure. Anything thrown into it will burn
and turn to ashes, but will not be able to touch the fire itself. Fire
remains untouched, distant; it is unapproachable.

The sage therefore says:

Initiation is contentment; it is pavan. Within himself he sees twelve
suns.

What is the meaning of twelve suns? One sun we know, so

“twelve suns” is just a way of emphasizing the brightness.
Sannyasins who are initiated experience so much brightness - as
if twelve suns have risen within, as if their whole inner sky is full of
suns. They attain to such a brightness of consciousness as if there
are twelve suns within. But one has to enter in the following way:
the sannyasins’ asana has to be without support. Communion with
the ultimate reality has to be their initiation; separation from the
illusory has to be their doctrine. Initiation has to bring contentment
- and it is holy. Then, they attain to the light of twelve suns, of
innumerable suns. They are then capable of knowing the supreme
sun which is the source, the foundation and abode of all life and all
consciousness.
There is nowhere on the outside to see these suns. They are
hidden within - but we do not go within. There is darkness outside
and light within. Outside, there may be many suns, but darkness is
never completely destroyed by them. Darkness is eternal in the
external world. Have you ever thought about it, that externally, any
number of suns may go on giving light, but darkness is eternal?
Suns can come and go, they can burn out and be extinguished.
Suns do not continue to burn eternally; they are born and they die;
innumerable suns have been born and have died.
Our sun is very new; there are also many older suns in the sky.
Scientists say that they have been able to count three billion suns
in the endless expanse of sky. Out of these three billion suns, every
day one sun dies and some other sun is born. In some corner of
existence some sun dies, extinguishes, disintegrates and burns to
ashes; in some other corner some new sun is born.
For millennia suns may burn, but darkness is eternal. Suns come
and go but darkness remains untouched. In the morning when the
sun rises, you feel that the darkness has gone, but the darkness
only hides. You can say that you are simply not able to see the
darkness. Your eyes are so dazzled by the light of the sun that you
cannot see the darkness. When in the evening the sun sets,
darkness is there in its place. Darkness has not suddenly come - it
was always there. Have you ever reflected upon it, that light has to
come, but darkness remains where it is? It is eternally stationary.
Some day, when our sun is extinguished, darkness will remain.
Suns have a lifespan, darkness is eternal. The darkness is never
lost, it is permanent. When a lamp is lit we feel that darkness has
been destroyed, but when the lamp is extinguished the darkness is
still there. The darkness does not even waver. Darkness is eternal,
light is momentary. Whether it is the light of a lamp or of a sun, it
has its moment and then it disappears.
In the inner world, the situation is just the reverse: light is eternal
and darkness is momentary. Howsoever much you may wander in
ignorance, howsoever sinful you may become, there is no change
in the inner light. The inner light does not waver. Sins come and
go, journeys into hell are undertaken and completed.
but the day you return within, you will find eternal light there. Inside
there is eternal light, outside there is eternal darkness. Outside
there is momentary light, inside there is momentary darkness.
Whosoever reaches the innermost core, the sage says,
experiences innumerable suns within. The number twelve just
indicates the intensity of a dozen suns within, compared to our
experience of only one sun on the outside.
This inner light is different. The light you receive outside, whether
for a moment or for ages, comes from some source. Either it comes
from the sun or from a lamp. Anything that originates from a source
will be lost as soon as the reservoir of that source becomes empty,
just as when the oil in a lamp comes to an end the light goes out.
Even the light energy of the sun goes on diminishing, and one
day it will be completely used up. Scientists say in a few billion
years our sun will be extinguished. When that happens our trees,
our plants, life as such, will perish because our physical existence
is dependent on the sun. Wherever there is a reservoir, a limited
source, things are bound to be momentary.
The inner sun has no reservoir or source. It is a sourceless light,
so the light is never exhausted. Darkness is never exhausted
outside, and light is never exhausted within. Do you know where
darkness comes from? - it is not coming from anywhere, it is just
there. It does not arise from any source. That is why darkness is
never exhausted. The lamp of darkness is never extinguished
because it has no source. The light within and the darkness without
have no source and, as such, are permanent and eternal.
Whatsoever has no source is eternal; all the rest will vanish.
One who arrives at communion by abandoning security and
support, achieves the contentment and holiness of that
communion. He discovers that sourceless light.
The meditation. Let us move toward that light which is without a
source.
Take note of two or three things. Everyone has to use a blindfold.
Those who do not have a blindfold should get one. You have to put
cotton wool in your ears so they are plugged. And you have to put
your total energy into it, do not depend on my reminding you.
During the ten minutes of fast and intense breathing, you have
to put your whole life into it. When you put your whole life into it,
you will be able to enter the second stage. Then in the second
stage, dance so much, jump so much, shout, laugh or weep so
much that your entire life energy is unified. When the second stage
is done with total energy, you will be able to enter the third stage; it
will come on its own.
In the third stage you have to hammer with the sound “hoo, hoo”
so intensely that its impact reaches to the level of the abdomen, its
vibrations touch and arouse the kundalini which starts rising
upward. Only then will those twelve suns that we have been
speaking about be seen.
And one last thing: even after the meditation, when I have told
you that it is over, those who feel like it and wish to remain lying
down, they can do so. And the moment I say, "Be silent for ten
minutes,” then there should be no sound at all after that. Then no
one is to make any sound, no dancing, no movement. When it is
time to be quiet for ten minutes, then a total silence and inactivity
is required.
If anyone has come here from outside only as a spectator, he is
to move away at a distance. Go and sit on the hillock, at a distance.
And there too there should be no talking, only silent looking.