TO A FLY THAT LIKES THE SMELL OF PUTRID
MEAT, THE FRAGRANCE OF SANDALWOOD IS FOUL.
BEINGS WHO DISCARD NIRVANA
COVET COARSE SAMSARA'S REALM.

AN OX'S FOOTPRINTS FILLED WITH WATER
WILL SOON DRY UP; SO WITH A MIND THAT'S FIRM
BUT FULL OF QUALITIES THAT ARE NOT PERFECT,
THESE IMPERFECTIONS WILL IN TIME DRY UP.

LIKE SALT SEA WATER THAT TURNS
SWEET WHEN DRUNK UP BY THE CLOUDS,
SO A FIRM MIND THAT WORKS FOR OTHERS TURNS
THE POISON OF SENSE-OBJECTS INTO NECTAR.

IF INEFFABLE, NEVER IS ONE UNSATISFIED,
IF UNIMAGINABLE, IT MUST BE BLISS ITSELF.
THOUGH FROM A CLOUD ONE FEARS THE THUNDERCLAP,
THE CROPS RIPEN WHEN FROM IT POURS THE RAIN.

MAN IS A MYTH, AND THE MOST DANGEROUS MYTH -- because if you believe that man exists, then you don't try to evolve the man at all; there is no need. If you believe that you are already a man, then all growth stops.
You are not already a man, you are just a potentiality to be. You can be. You may not be. You may miss. Remember, it can be missed.
Man is not born; it is not a given fact. You cannot take it for granted. It is JUST a possibility. Man exists as a seed, not as a tree  -- not yet. Man is not yet actual, and the difference between the potential and the actual is great.
Man as he exists is just a machine -- yet he works, yet he succeeds in the world, yet he lives a so-called life and dies. But remember, he exists not. His function is that of a mechanism; he is a robot.
Man is a machine. Yes, this machine can grow something in it which can go beyond mechanism. This machine is no ordinary machine; it has tremendous potentiality to go beyond itself. It can produce something transcendental to its own structure. Sometimes it has produced a Buddha, a Christ, a Gurdjieff. Sometimes it HAS produced a man, but don't you believe that you are already a man. If you believe, your belief will be suicidal -- because once we believe that something is already there, then we stop looking for it, then we stop creating it, then we stop discovering it, then we stop evolving it.
Just think: an ill person, a seriously ill person, thinks he is healthy. Why should he go to the doctor? Why should he take any medicine? Why should he go under treatment? Why should he be willing to go to the hospital? He believes he is healthy, he's in perfect health... and he is dying! His belief will kill him.
That's why I say this myth is very dangerous, the most dangerous myth ever evolved by the priests and the politicians: that man is already on the earth. These millions of people on the earth are just possibilities; and unfortunately, the majority of them are never going to become actual; unfortunately, many of them will die as machines.
What do I mean when I say man is a machine? I mean that man lives out of the past. Man lives out of a dead structure. Man lives out of habit. Man lives a life of routine. Man goes on moving in the same circle, in the same rut... again and again and again. Can't you see the vicious circle in your life? The same things you have been doing every day: hoping, being angry, desiring, being ambitious, being sensual, sexual, being frustrated, again hoping, again the whole circle moves. Each hope leads to a frustration, never is it otherwise; and after each frustration a new hope -- and the circle starts moving.
In the East we call it the wheel of Samsara. It is a wheel! The spokes are the same. And you are deluded by it again and again. You again start hoping. And you know -- you have hoped before, you have hoped millions of times, and nothing happens out of that hope. Just the wheel goes on moving -- and goes on killing you, goes on destroying your life.
Time is running out of your hands. Each moment that is lost is lost for ever, and you go on repeating the old.
This is what I mean when I say man is a machine. I agree with George Gurdjieff absolutely. He used to say that you don't have a soul yet. He was the first man to say it so drastically, that you don't have a soul yet. Yes, the soul can be born in you, but you will have to give birth to it. You will have to become capable of giving birth to it.
Down the centuries the priests have told you that you have already that soul, that you are already that man. That is not so. You are only potentially so. You can become actually too, but the myth has to be destroyed. See the fact of it: you are not a conscious being, and if you are not a conscious being how can you be a man?
What is the difference between a rock and you? What is the difference between an animal and you? What is the difference between a tree and you? The difference is that of consciousness -- but how much consciousness do you have? Just a flicker here and there. Just sometimes, in rare moments, you become conscious; and that is only for seconds and again you fall back into unconsciousness. Yes, sometimes it happens, because it is your potentiality. Sometimes it happens in spite of you.
One day the sun is rising and you fall into tune with existence -- and suddenly it is there, the beauty of it, the benediction of it, the fragrance of it, the light of it. Suddenly it is there and you have a taste of what it would be, what it can be, what it is. But the moment you become alert that it is there, it is already gone. Only a memory is left. Only for rare moments: sometimes in love, sometimes watching a full moon, sometimes a rising sun, sometimes sitting in a silent mountain cave, sometimes looking at a child playing, giggling; yes, sometimes in music, but these moments are rare.
If an ordinary man, the so-called man, achieves seven moments of awareness in his whole life, that will be too much. Rarely, very rarely, just a ray enters, and then it is gone. And you are back to your trivial life, dull and dead. And this is not so only with ordinary people: it is so with your so-called extraordinary people.
Just the other day I was reading about Carl Jung, one of the greatest psychologists of this age. But sometimes one wonders whether to call these people psychologists or not. He was a very restless man, absolutely restless. He could not sit silently for a single moment. He would turn and toss; he would do something or other. If there was nothing to do he would smoke his pipe. And he was a chain-smoker. Then he had a heart attack and the doctors said to stop smoking -- an absolute stop. Now it was very difficult. He started feeling his restlessness too much. He started feeling crazy. He would walk up and down in the room, he would go outside -- for no reason. He would sit in this chair and the other. And then he recognized the fact that the pipe had been very very helpful. It was a release, a sort of release of his restlessness. So he asked the doctors, "Can I put the empty pipe in my mouth? Is it allowed?" Empty pipe! "That will help me."
He was allowed, and then for years he used to put the empty pipe in his mouth, just pretending that he was smoking. And then he would look at the pipe, would keep the pipe in the hand, would play with the pipe. And this is about a great psychologist of this age! What unconsciousness! So much in the grip of the habit, so much in the grip of the unconscious! It looks very childish. And then we go on finding rationalizations; then we go on pretending to ourselves, then we go on protecting and defending ourselves, as to why we are doing this.
At the age of forty-five Carl Jung fell in love with a woman. He was a married man, with a very loving wife. Nothing was wrong, but it must have been the restlessness. It almost always happens that near about the age of forty-five one starts feeling that the whole life is gone. Death is coming closer. And because of death coming closer, either you become spiritual or you become more sexual.
These are the only two defences: either you turn in search of truth, of the eternal, which will have no death, or you start drowning yourself in more erotic fantasies. And particularly intellectuals, those who have lived their whole lives through the head, are more victims at the age of forty-five. Then the sexuality takes revenge. It has been denied; now death is coming closer. and then one never knows whether you will be here again or not, whether life will be there or not. Death is coming here and you have lived a life of the head. Sexuality erupts with a vengeance.
Carl Gustav Jung fell in love with a young woman. Now, it was very much against his prestige. The wife was disturbed, and the wife had loved him tremendously and trusted him. He rationalized it beautifully. Look at his rationalization -- that's how unconscious man goes on living. He will do something unconsciously, then will try to rationalize it, and will try to prove that it is not unconscious: "I am doing it very consciously -- in fact, it HAS to be done."
What did he do? He suddenly developed a theory that there are two types of women in the world: one, the mother type, the caring type, the WIFE type; and the other, the mistress type, the beloved, who becomes an inspiration. And man needs both -- and a man like Carl Gustav Jung certainly needs both. He needs inspiration too. He needs a caring woman; that his wife is fulfilling -- she is loving, a mother type. But that doesn't fulfill his need -- he needs inspiration too, he needs a romantic woman too, a mistress who can take him into deep dreams; that is a must for him. Jung developed this theory. This is a rationalization.
Now, he never developed the other part of it, that men are two types. That's where you can find that it is a rationalization. If it was a real insight, then the other part, that men are two types, the father type and the lover type... then Jung's wife needs two! If Jung thinks that he is a lover type, then she needs the father type. If Jung thinks he is a father type, then she needs a lover type. But that he never developed. That's how you can see it is not an insight. It is just a tricky mind, a rationalization.
We go on rationalizing. We do things unconsciously. We do them without knowing why we are doing them. But we cannot accept the fact -- it is very humiliating to accept that "I have been doing something of which I am not aware and I don't know why." Beware of rationalizations.
And how can such people be beneficial to others? It is a well known fact that many of Carl Jung's patients committed suicide. Why? They had come to be helped -- why did they commit suicide? Something must be basically wrong. His analysis is just lousy. He is a very arrogant man, very egoistic; continuously ready to fight. Maybe his whole psychoanalysis developed only as his arrogance against Sigmund Freud. Maybe it is again just a rationalization, because he himself seems to be suffering from the same problems he is thinking to help others about.
Jung was always afraid of ghosts; even in his old age he was afraid of ghosts. He did not publish his most important book while he was alive because he was afraid that people would come to know the facts. So his memoirs were published, but he made certain that they should be published only when he was dead. Now, what type of truth and authenticity is this? He was so much afraid of being found wrong or in the wrong that he never allowed any fact to be disclosed about his life while he was alive.
I was reading one anecdote:

A man came to a psychiatrist and proceeded to unfold before the doctor his life story, covering his childhood experiences, his emotional life, his eating habits, his vocational problems, and everything else he could think of. "Well," said the doctor, "it doesn't seem to me as though there were anything wrong with you. You seem as sane as I am."
"But, doctor," protested the patient, a note of horror creeping into his voice, "it's these butterflies. I can't stand them. They're all over me."
"For heaven's sake," cried the doctor, recoiling, "don't brush them off on me!"

The patients and the doctors, all are in the same boat. The psychoanalyst and the analyzed are not very far apart. It is a game. Maybe the psychoanalyst is more clever, but it is not that he knows the reality -- because to know the reality you will have to become tremendously conscious; there is no other way. It is not a question of intellectual thinking. It has nothing to do with your philosophizing. To know reality one has to grow into awareness.
Gurdjieff used to talk about a future psychology. He used to say that psychology still exists not, because how can it exist? Even man exists not! When man is not there, how can there be a science about man? First the man has to exist, then the science about the man can exist. Right now, whatsoever exists is not psychology. Maybe it is something about the machine that man is.
Psychology can exist only around a Buddha. With consciousness Buddha lives. You can find what his psyche is, what his soul is. Ordinary man lives without a soul. Yes, you can find something wrong in his mechanism, and that wrong can be put right. What we know as psychology today is nothing but behaviorism. And in THAT sense, Pavlov and Skinner are FAR truer than Freud and Jung -- because they think man is a machine. They are true about the man that exists, although they are not absolutely true because they think this is the end: man cannot be otherwise. That is their limitation: they think man can only be the machine. They are true as far as the present-day man is concerned man is a machine but they think that man cannot be otherwise... there they are wrong. But Freud and Jung and Adler are more wrong because they think man is already on the earth: all that you need is to study man and you will know. But man is not there. It is a very unconscious phenomenon.
Man is a myth -- let that be one of the most basic insights. It will help you to come out of the lie, out of the deception.

TANTRA IS AN EFFORT TO MAKE YOU MORE CONSCIOUS. The very word'Tantra' means expansion of awareness. It comes from a Sanskrit root'tan':'tan' means expansion. Tantra means expansion of consciousness -- and the basic fact, and the most fundamental fact to be understood is that you are fast asleep, you have to be awakened.
Tantra believes in school methods -- that has to be understood also. In that sense Gurdjieff is one of the greatest tantrikas of this age. For example: if one is asleep, there is very little possibility that one can become awake alone. Look at it in this way: on the new year day you think, as you have always thought, and many new year days have passed, and always you have taken a vow that never again will you smoke -- and again the new year has come and you start thinking this time it is going to happen. You take a vow that you will never smoke, but you don't go and tell it to others; you are afraid to. To say it to others is dangerous because you know yourself: many times you have broken your vows -- then it is very humiliating. So you keep it to yourself. Now there is only one possibility out of a hundred that the vow will be kept; ninety-nine possibilities are that it will be broken sooner or later.
You are an unconscious being; your vow does not mean much. But if you go and you tell everybody in the town -- friends, colleagues, children, wife -- you go and tell everybody that "I have taken a vow that I am not going to smoke," there are more possibilities, at least ten percent, that you will not smoke. First there was only one possibility, now there are ten possibilities. Ninety percent the possibility is that you will smoke; but non-smoking has more ground, more solidity. From one percent it has gone to ten percent. But if you join a group of non-smokers, if you join a society of non-smokers, then the possibility is even more: ninety-nine percent is the possibility that you will not smoke. What happens?
When you are alone you don't have any support from outside -- you are alone; you can fall asleep easily. And nobody knows, so you are not worried either. When all know, their knowing will function to keep you more alert. Now your ego is at stake, your respect and honor are at stake. But if you join a society of nonsmokers, then the possibility is even more -- because you live through habits! Somebody takes his cigarette-box out of his pocket, and suddenly you start looking in your pocket. You are just mechanical: somebody is smoking and you start thinking how beautiful it was to smoke. Nobody smokes, and you are in the society of non-smokers, then nobody will remind you; and the habit by and by will disappear -- out of no use. If a habit is not used, by and by it disappears; it tends to become dead, it loses its grip on you.
Tantra says man can become awake only through group methods, through schools. That's why I insist so much for sannyas. Alone, you don't stand a chance. Together, much more possibility. It is as if ten persons are lost in a desert, and it is very dangerous in the night: the enemies can kill them, the wild animals can kill them, the robbers can come, the murderers can come -- it is very difficult. Now they decide on a group method. They say: "Each one will be awake for one hour." To think that each one will be capable of remaining awake for eight hours in the night is to ask too much from an unconscious man; but each one will remain awake for one hour. And before he starts falling asleep, he should make somebody else awake; then there is more possibility that at least one of the group will be awake the whole night.
Or, as Gurdjieff used to say: You are in a prison and you want to come out of the prison. Alone, there is not much chance, but if all the prisoners become a group, then there is much more chance -- they can throw the guard, they can kill the guard, they can break the wall. If all the prisoners are together, then there is much more chance that they can come out into freedom.
But the chances will increase even more if they are in contact with a few people who are outside the prison, who are already free. That is the whole meaning of finding a Master: finding somebody who is already outside the prison. He can be of tremendous help -- for many reasons. He can supply necessary things which will be needed for you to come out of the prison. He can send instruments, files, so that you can break out of the prison. He can watch from the outside and he can inform you when the guards change -- in that interval there is a possibility to get out. He can inform you when the guards fall asleep in the night. He can make arrangements so that the guards are drunk on one particular night. He can invite the jailor to his house for a party. He can do a thousand and one things which you cannot do from the inside. He can find support for you from the outside. He can create an atmosphere so that when you are released from the jail you will be accepted by the people, you will be sheltered, taken into houses. If the society is not ready to accept you from the outside, you may come out of the jail but the society will deliver you back to the prison authorities.
To be in contact with someone who is already awake is a must. And to be together with those people who are all thinking to become awake is also a must. This is the meaning of a school method, a group method. Tantra is a group method. It says: Be together. Find out all the possibilities; so many people can be together and they can pool their energies. Somebody is very intelligent, and somebody is very loving. Both are half, but together they become more of a unity, more wholeness.
Man is half, woman is half. Except for Tantra, all the seekers have tried to do without the other. Man has tried alone, women have tried alone. Tantra says: Why not be together -- join hands together? The woman is half, the man is half -- together they are a greater energy, a more whole energy, a healthier energy. Join together! Let yin and yang function together. There will be more possibility of getting out of it.
Other methods use fight and conflict. Man starts fighting with women, starts escaping from women rather than using the possibility of the help, he starts thinking of the woman as the enemy. Tantra says this is sheer foolishness; you are wasting your energy unnecessarily fighting with the woman -- because there are greater things to be fought about! It is better to keep company with the Woman; let her help you, and you help her. Go together as one unit and you have more chances to stand against the unconscious nature.
Use all possibilities; then only is there SOME chance that you can evolve into a conscious being, you can become a Buddha.

Now the sutras these are very significant sutras -- first sutra:

TO A FLY THAT LIKES THE SMELL OF PUTRID
MEAT, THE FRAGRANCE OF SANDALWOOD IS FOUL.
BEINGS WHO DISCARD NIRVANA
COVET COARSE SAMSARA'S REALM.

FIRST THING: just as I said -- man is a machine. Man lives out of habit, out of the past, out of memories. Man lives out of knowledge that he has known, acquired before. So he goes on missing the new... and the truth is always the new. He is like a fly that likes the smell of putrid meat, the foul and fetid odor; the fragrance of sandalwood is foul to that fly. She has a certain cast of memory, a certain past. She has always thought that the putrid smell of meat is fragrance. That is her knowledge, that is her habit, that is her routine -- that is her dead past. Now, suddenly she comes across sandalwood: the fragrance of sandalwood will look to the fly as if it is a very foul and fetid odor.
Don't be surprised... that's what is happening to you. If you have lived too much in the body, then even coming closer to a man who lives in his soul and you will feel something is wrong. Coming to a Buddha, you will not feel the fragrance; you may even start feeling a bad smell. Your interpretation -- otherwise why did people murder Jesus? Jesus was a sandalwood! And people simply killed him. Why did people poison Socrates? Socrates was sandalwood! But the flies -- they understand their own past, they interpret according to their past.
One day I was reading: A prostitute, the most famous prostitute of Athens, once came to Socrates. And a few people were sitting there, just a few people, just as here a few people are sitting, and Socrates was talking to them. The prostitute looked around and said to Socrates, "Why? -- such a great man like you, and only so few people listening to you? I had thought the whole of Athens would be here! And I don't see the most respectable, the most honored -- the politicians, the priests, the intellectuals -- I don't see them here. What is the matter? Come, Socrates, some day to my house -- you will find them standing in a queue!"
Socrates said, "You are right -- because you cater for a universal demand I don't. I attract only a few, a chosen few. Others cannot feel my fragrance. They avoid! Even if they come across me, they escape. They are afraid. It is a totally different fragrance," said Socrates.
The prostitute must have been of tremendous intelligence. She looked into the eyes of Socrates, bowed down, and said, "Socrates, accept me as one of your friends," and never left, became part of that small school.
Must have been a woman of great awareness -- so sudden a change. She understood it so immediately! But Athens killed Socrates. They did not like the man. The man looked very dangerous. Against him there were many charges. One was that "He destroys people's beliefs, he destroys young people's minds. He is anarchic. If he is allowed to live any more the society will be uprooted -- he is a dangerous enemy." What was he doing?
He was doing something totally different: he was trying to create a state of no-mind. But the people thought "He destroys people's minds." They are also right, the flies. Yes, young people were tremendously attracted to Socrates -- because only young people can be attracted to such things, only youth has that courage. Even if old people come to me or to Socrates, they are young people only. That's why they come; otherwise they cannot come. An old, rotten mind cannot come to me. Maybe the body is old, but if an old man comes to me or an old woman, she comes only because she still has the youth of her soul, she is still young somewhere; still she is able to understand the new, to learn the new. They say you cannot teach an old dog new tricks -- it is very difficult. The old dog knows old tricks, and he goes on repeating them. It is very difficult to teach anything to an old mind.
And these things are SO radically different, so diametrically opposite to all that has been taught to you, that unless a man is REALLY young he cannot even listen.
So young people were attracted. That was a sign that something of the eternal, something of the eternal youngness of the universe, was pouring through Socrates.
When Jesus is alive you will find young people following him. You will not find young people going to see the Pope -- old people, dead people, long, long ago dead, they go to see the Pope. When the original Shankaracharya was alive you would find young people all around him. But to the Shankaracharya of Puri only dead bodies, corpses listen. Alive persons -- you cannot find them.
You can go and look into any temple and you will find old women and old men -- youth is not there. In fact, whenever a religion is REALLY there, youth is attracted; when truth is there, youth is attracted. When there are only lies left, doctrines, dogmas, creeds, then old people come. When youth is attracted, that means truth is young and youth is attracted. When truth is old, almost dead, then dead people are attracted.
Old people are attracted only because of the fear of death. In old age, even atheists become theists... afraid. When a young man is attracted towards something it is not because of the fear of death, because he does not know any death yet; it is because of tremendous love for life. And that is the difference between real religion and unreal religion. Unreal religion is fear-oriented; real religion is love-oriented.
You must have heard, in all the languages of the world that ugly word exists: godfearing. That must have been coined by dead, dull, old people. Godfearing? How can one fear God? And if you fear God, how can you love Him? Out of fear, never love -- only hatred can arise. Out of fear you can be against God, because He will be your enemy; how can you love Him? And if you love Him, how can you be afraid? Have you ever been afraid of the person you love? Have you ever been afraid of your mother if you love her? Have you ever been afraid of your woman if you love her? If you love, there is no fear -- LOVE CASTETH OUT ALL FEAR. Godloving... romantically in love with God... ecstatically in love with God....
But that is possible only for the young mind. Whether the young mind is in the young body or in the old body, that is irrelevant -- but it is possible only for the young mind. Now, Socrates is punished because he attracted young people. Buddha is punished because he attracted young people. But always remember: whenever a religion is born, young people rush from all corners of the world.
THEY should be the symbol that something has happened. When old people are rushing somewhere, you can be certain nothing is happening there. That is not where the action is! Where young people are going, that is the place where action is. But:

TO A FLY THAT LIKES THE SMELL OF PUTRID
MEAT, THE FRAGRANCE OF SANDALWOOD IS FOUL.
BEINGS WHO DISCARD NIRVANA
COVET COARSE SAMSARA'S REALM.

Truth is the unknown, the mysterious. You cannot approach it through your past habit. You can approach it only when you are naked of all habits.
The Christian priest's robe is called'the habit' -- it is a beautiful use of the word'habit'. Yes, I say, when you are nude of all habits, naked of all habits, all dresses are dropped, you function not through memory but through awareness; these are two different functions. You function through memory, then you don't see that which is. You go on seeing that which you have seen before. You go on interpreting the present in terms of the past. You go on imposing something which is not there. You go on seeing things which are not, and you go on not seeing things which are. Memory has to be put aside. Memory is good, use it, but truth has never been known through memory. How can you know truth through memory? You have never known truth in the past.
Truth is not known. Truth is a stranger. You will have to put all memory aside. You will have to say to your mind, "Keep quiet. Let me see without you! Let me look only with clarity, not with clouded eyes, no thoughts, no beliefs, no scriptures, no philosophies, no religions. Let me look directly, immediately! Let me look herenow, let me look into that which is confronting me." Only then are you in tune with the mystery of truth.
And remember: truth never becomes a memory. Even when you have known it, it never becomes a memory. Truth is so vast, it cannot be contained by the memory. And whenever it will again be there, and you will know it, it will again be new. It is never old. It is always new. It is always fresh -- that is one of its qualities, that it never becomes old. It is always young.
So if you want to know the truth, Saraha says to the king, Sir, if you really want to know the truth of what has happened to me, you put aside your mind. I know you are just like a fly. You have lived a life of body and mind; you don't know anything beyond them. I am standing here: I am beyond both. And there is no way to explain it to you according to your mind; no, it cannot be explained. If you really want to experience it, you can experience it, but it cannot be explained.
God cannot be defined. God cannot be explained. Please remember, never explain it; because if you explain it you will be explaining it away. God cannot be contained by any thought, but God can be lived, God can be loved. YOU CAN BECOME GODS! that is possible -- but the mind cannot contain the God. Mind is a very small container. It is like a teaspoon -- and you want to have the Pacific ocean in the teaspoon'? Yes, you can have a little salty water in your teaspoon, but that won't give the idea of the Pacific, of the vastness. Storms won't happen in your teaspoon; great waves will not arise. Yes, it will taste like it, but it will not be an ocean.
Saraha says: If you want to see me, sir, you will have to put your mind aside you have a fly's mind. You have certain habits of thinking, of feeling; you have certain habits of living. You have lived a life of body and mind, and, at the most, whatsoever you have known up to now is just heard by you -- you have read scriptures.
Saraha himself was reading scriptures to the king before; he knows it well. He knows what the king knows: his knowledge is just information. Saraha says: It has happened to me! But to see it you will need a different quality of seeing.
Mind never meets the truth, never encounters the truth. The ways of the mind and the ways of the truth are absolutely separate. It is a separate reality. Hence the insistence of all the mystics of the world to attain to a state of no-mind. That's what meditation is all about: a state of no-mind, a state of non-thinking -- yet fully aware, luminous with awareness. When there is not a single thought, your sky is clean of all clouds, and then the sun shines bright.
Ordinarily we are clouded with so many thoughts, desires, ambitions, dreams, that the sun cannot shine. It hides behind those dark clouds. Desire is a cloud, thought is a cloud, imagination is a cloud -- and one needs to be unclouded to know that which is.

Saraha says:

BEINGS WHO DISCARD NIRVANA
COVET COARSE SAMSARA'S REALM.

SAMSARA MEANS TO LIVE AS BODY, AS MIND, AS EGO.'Samsara' means to live outwards.'Samsara' means to live with things,'Samsara' means to live with the idea that all is matter and nothing else.'Samsara' means three poisons: power, prestige, pull -- to live in the world with the idea of having more power, more prestige, more money, more pull... this and that; to live in things and for things. That is the meaning of the word'Samsara' -- THE WORLD.
Just watch yourself: have you ever lived with persons or do you live only with things? Is your wife a person or a thing? Is your husband a person or a thing? Do you treat your husband as a person, as a superbly, intrinsically valuable person, or just as a utility -- that he is the provider of bread and butter, or that she is the housekeeper, looks after the children? Is your wife an end unto herself, or is she just a utility, a commodity to be used? Sometimes you use her sexually, sometimes you use her in other ways -- but using the person means the person is a thing to you, not a person.
A person cannot be used; only things can be used. A person cannot be purchased; only things can be purchased. A person has such tremendous value, such divinity, such dignity -- how can you use a person? Yes, he can give out of her or his love, but you cannot use. And you have to be thankful. Have you ever been thankful to your wife? Have you ever been thankful to your father, to your mother? Have you ever been thankful to your friends? Sometimes you are thankful to a stranger, but never to your own people -- because you take them for granted.
To live with things is to live in Samsara. To live with persons is to live in Nirvana. And once you start living with persons, things start disappearing. Ordinarily, even persons are reduced to things, and when a person starts becoming meditative even things start becoming persons, even a tree becomes a person, a rock becomes a person. Everything, by and by, starts having a personality -- because God is spread all over the existence.
Saraha says: Sir, you have lived in Samsara and you cannot understand the way of Nirvana. If you really want to understand it, you will have to live it -- there is no other way. To know, you will have to taste something of it. And I am here, standing before you -- and you are asking for explanations!? Nirvana is standing in front of you, and you are asking for theories? Not only that -- you must be utterly blind -- you have come to persuade me to come back to your Samsara?! A fly is persuading me to leave the forest of sandalwood and its fragrance for the putrid smell of meat. HAVE YOU GONE MAD? said Saraha to the king. Let me persuade you to come to my world rather than you persuading me to come to your world. I have known your world, and I have known this new reality too. I can compare. You have known only your world; you don't know my reality -- you can't compare.
When a Buddha says this world is illusory, meditate over it -- because he has known this world too. When some atheist, materialist, some communist, says that the world of Nirvana is just illusory, there is no need to bother about it at all -- because he has not known it. He knows only this world. You cannot trust his assertions about the other world. He has never meditated, he has never entered into it.
Look at it: of all those who have meditated, not a single one has denied the inner reality -- not a single one! Without exception, all the meditators have become mystics. Those who have not meditated, they know only the world of the fly and the world of the foul and fetid odor of putrid meat. They live in the rotten world of things, but they know only that and, certainly, their statements cannot be trusted. A Buddha can be trusted, a Christ can be trusted, a Mahavir can be trusted. They have known both! They have known the lower and the higher; and by knowing the higher, they say something about the lower which has to be meditated upon. Don't reject it outright.
For example, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, they have never meditated -- and they say there is no God. Now, it is almost as if a man has never gone to the lab of the scientist and says something about science, a man who has never gone into the lab and says that the theory of relativity is just mumbo-jumbo -- it cannot be relied upon. You have to go to the lab, you have to go into higher mathematics -- you have to prove it! Just because you cannot understand it, you cannot be allowed to deny it.
There are very few people who understand the theory of relativity. It was said when Einstein was alive that there were only twelve persons alive who understood his theory all over the world. And there are a few people who think that is an exaggeration, that number is not right -- not even twelve persons were there to understand his theory correctly. But because of that, you cannot say it is not right; you cannot take a vote about it; you cannot defeat it in an election. You will have to go through the same processes.
Now, Marx saying there is no God is simply making a stupid statement -- never meditated, never contemplated, never prayed. His statement is irrelevant. Those who have meditated, those who have dug a little deeper into their being, they have come to the same truths.

BEINGS WHO DISCARD NIRVANA
COVET COARSE SAMSARA'S REALM.

Saraha is saying: You discard Nirvana, and you go on rushing after illusions. You have come to persuade me, sir? Look at me. how ecstatic I am. Look at me! I am not the same person who had left your court -- I am totally a different person.
He is trying to bring the king's awareness to the present moment, and he succeeded. He must have been a man of great presence. He pulled the king out of the world of the flies, out of the world of putrid meat. He pulled him to the world of sandalwood and its fragrance.

The second sutra:

AN OX'S FOOTPRINTS FILLED WITH WATER
WILL SOON DRY UP; SO WITH A MIND THAT'S FIRM
BUT FULL OF QUALITIES THAT ARE NOT PERFECT,
THESE IMPERFECTIONS WILL IN TIME DRY UP.

HE SAYS: Look! An ox has walked, and there is a footprint on the land, and the footprint is filled with water, rainwater how long will it be there? Sooner or later it will evaporate and the ox's footprint filled with water will not be there any more. But the ocean is always. Although the water in the ox's footprint is also from the ocean, still something is different.
The ocean always remains, never increasing, never decreasing. Great clouds arise out of it: it never decreases. Great rivers pour their waters into it: it never increases. It remains always the same. But this small footprint of an ox is full of water right now; within hours or days it will be gone, it will dry up -- so is the skull of the human mind. It is just an ox's footprint; such a small thing. Just a little water is there -- don't trust it too much; it is already drying up. It will disappear. The skull is a very small thing. Don't think that you can contain the universe in the skull.
And it can only be temporary: it can never be the eternal.

AN OX'S FOOTPRINTS FILLED WITH WATER
WILL SOON DRY UP; SO WITH A MIND THAT'S FIRM
BUT FULL OF QUALITIES THAT ARE NOT PERFECT,
THESE IMPERFECTIONS WILL IN TIME DRY UP.

What are you keeping in your small skull? What are the contents? Desires, dreams, ambitions, thoughts, imagination, will, emotions -- these are the things that you are keeping as content. They ALL will dry up. All contents will dry up! so change the emphasis from the contents to the container. That is the whole secret of Tantra. Look at the container and don't look at the content. The sky is full of clouds; don't look at the clouds, look at the sky. Don't look at what is there in your head, what is there in your mind -- just look at your consciousness. Emotion is there, anger is there, love is there, greed is there, fear is there, jealousy is there -- these are contents. Just behind them is the infinite sky of consciousness.
A man who lives through the contents, lives the life of a machine. And the man who starts changing his emphasis from the contents to the container starts living the life of awareness, of Buddhahood.
And says Saraha: Sir, these contents that you are having in your mind will soon dry up -- look at that ox's footprint! Your head is not bigger than that, the skull is not bigger than that. But your consciousness is infinite.
Now, this has to be understood: emotions are in your head, but consciousness is not in your head. In fact, your head is in your consciousness! Consciousness is vast, infinite. Emotions, desires, ambitions, are in your head; they will dry up. But even when your head has completely dropped and disappeared into the earth, your consciousness will not disappear. You don't contain the consciousness in you: the consciousness contains you; it is bigger than you.
There are people who ask... sometimes somebody comes to me and asks: "Where is the soul in the human body? In the heart? In the navel? In the head? Where is the soul?" They think they are asking a very pertinent question. It is nowhere in the body -- your body is in the soul. The soul is a bigger phenomenon than your body. The soul surrounds you.
And your soul and my soul are not different! We live in the existence, we live in one soul's ocean. One soul surrounds us, within and without. It is all one energy. I don't have a different soul and you don't have a different soul. We have different bodies. It is almost like the electricity running into the bulb and running into the radio and running into the TV and moving the fan... and doing a thousand and one things. The fan is different from the bulb, but the electricity that runs them is the same.
We are one energy. Our expressions are different, but our reality is one. If you look at the content, if I look at the content then my dreams are different from yours, certainly. We cannot share our dreams. I have my ambitions, you have your ambitions. And it is not only that we cannot share our dreams: our dreams are in conflict. My ambition is against your ambition; your ambition is against my ambition. But if we forget the contents and just look at consciousness, pure consciousness, cloudless sky -- then where is'you' and where is'I'? We are one.
In that moment there is unity. And in that moment there is universal consciousness.
ALL consciousness is universal. Unconsciousness is private. Consciousness is universal. The day you become really a man, you are a universal man. That is the meaning of'Buddha': universal man -- come to total and absolute awareness.
Man as a machine is different. This has to be understood. If you are having kidney trouble, I am not having any. If I am having a headache, you are not having the headache; even if you love me you cannot share the headache. Even if I love you I cannot have your pain. But if we two are sitting together and meditating and a moment comes when I have no content in my mind and you also don't have any content in your mind, we will not be two. Meditators begin as separate, but end as one.
If you all are sitting in meditation here, listening to me, then you are not many, then you are one. Then you are not only one: the speaker and the listener are not separate -- then we are bridged together. Twenty meditators in a room meditating, when they come to real meditation are no more twenty: there is only one meditative quality in the room.
There is a story: a few people came to see Buddha. Ananda was sitting on guard outside the room. But those people took such a long time that Ananda became worried. Many times he looked in, but they continued and continued and continued... then he came inside the room to see what was happening. And there he found nobody just Buddha sitting. So he asked Buddha, "Where have those fellows gone? And there is no other door, and I am sitting at the only door, so where have they gone'?"
And Buddha said, "They are meditating.''
It is a beautiful story. They all fell into meditation, and Ananda could not see them because he was still not a meditator. He could not see this new phenomenon, this total shift of energy. They were not there, because they were not as their bodies there; they were not as their minds there. Those egos dissolved. Ananda could see only what HE could see. A new reality had happened.
A great king once came to see Buddha. His prime minister persuaded him to come, but he was a very suspicious man -- as politicians and Kings usually are. Very suspicious. He didn't want to come in the first place; just for political reasons he came to see him, because in the capital the rumor was spreading that he was against Buddha; and all the people were for Buddha, so he became afraid. It was not diplomatic, so he went to see.
With his prime minister, when he reached closer to the grove where Buddha was sitting with his ten thousand monks, he became very much afraid. He pulled his sword out and he said to the prime minister, "What is the matter? -- because you said ten thousand people are staying there, and we have come so close and there is no noise! Is there some conspiracy?"
The prime minister laughed and be said, "You don't know buddha's people. You just put your sword back! You come on -- there is no conspiracy or anything. You need not be afraid. They are not going to kill you. You don't know Buddha's men."
But very suspicious, holding his hand on the sword, the king went into the grove. He was surprised. He could not believe there were ten thousand people sitting under the trees silently, as if there was no one. He asked Buddha, "This is a miracle! -- ten thousand people. Even ten people together create so much noise  -- what are these people doing? What has happened to these people? Has something gone wrong? Are they still alive? They look like statues! And what are they doing sitting here? They should do something! "
And Buddha said, "They are doing something, but it has nothing to do with the outside. They are doing something in their inner world. They are not in their bodies, they are in their beings, at the very core. And these are not ten thousand people right now -- they are all part of one consciousness.

The third sutra:

LIKE SALT SEA WATER THAT TURNS
SWEET WHEN DRUNK UP BY THE CLOUDS,
SO A FIRM MIND THAT WORKS FOR OTHERS TURNS
THE POISON OF SENSE-OBJECTS INTO NECTAR.

THE BASIC TANTRA ATTITUDE IS: the sensual can be transformed into the sublime, matter can be transformed into mind, the unconscious can be transformed into consciousness.
Modern physics says matter can be transformed into energy, energy can be transformed into matter. In fact, they are not two but the same energy functioning as two forms. Tantra says sex can be transformed into Samadhi the same approach; very basic and fundamental. The lower can be transformed into the higher, because lower ana higher are joined together; it is a ladder. They are never separate, nowhere separate; there is no gap between them. You can move from the lower to the higher. you can move from the higher to the lower.
And that ladder is what man is. He can exist on the lowest rung; that is his decision. He can move upwards, he can exist on the highest rung. He can exist as a beast, or he can exist as a Buddha -- both are his rungs, the lowest and the highest. And man is a ladder. He can fall into deep unconsciousness and become a rock, and he can rise to absolute consciousness and can become a God. But both are not separate -- that is the beauty of Tantra.
Tantra is non-divisive. Tantra is the only religion which is not schizophrenic. Tantra is the only religion which is really sane -- the sanest religion -- because it doesn't divide. If you divide, you create a split. If you tell people that the body is bad, that the body is the enemy, that the body has to be condemned, that the body is in the service of the Devil, then you are creating a split in man, then the man becomes afraid of the body. And then, by and by, there is created an unbridgeable gulf, and he is pulled into two parts. He is torn into opposite directions. The body pulls into the body, the mind tries to pull into the mind -- there is a conflict and confusion.
Tantra says you are one; there is no need to have any confusion. You can be fused in one reality. There is no need to have any conflict, there is no need to be torn apart. There is no need to go insane. You can love all that is available, and you can evolve it -- with deep love, care, creativity, it can be evolved. The body is not the enemy of your soul; the body is just the sheath of your sword. The body is just the temple, it is your abode. It is not the enemy, it is your friend.
Tantra drops all sorts of violence -- not only violence with others, but violence with oneself. Tantra says: Love reality in its totality. Yes, much can be evolved, but all evolution is through love. And there is no need to fight.

LIKE SALT SEA WATER THAT TURNS
SWEET WHEN DRUNK UP BY THE CLOUDS...

You cannot drink the salt sea water; it is so salty, it is all salt. You will die if you drink the salty sea water. But when a cloud comes and draws the water from the sea, it turns sweet -- and then you can drink it.
Saraha says: Samadhi is like a cloud, meditative energy is like a cloud, which turns your sexuality into higher realms, which turns your physical existence into non-physical existence, which turns the salty, bitter experiences of the world into sweet nectar-like experiences of Nirvana. The Samsara itself becomes Nirvana if you can create the cloud that transforms it. That cloud, Buddha has actually called it DHARMAMEGHA SAMADHI -- the Samadhi of the cloud of the fundamental law -- DHARMAMEGHA SAMADHI.
You can create that cloud. That cloud is created by meditation. You go on intensely meditating, dropping thoughts, dropping desires, ambitions: by and by, your consciousness is a burning fire -- that cloud is there. Now you can transform anything through that fire. That fire transmutes, that fire is alchemical. Through meditation the lower becomes higher, the baser metal is turned into gold.

LIKE SALT SEA WATER THAT TURNS
SWEET WHEN DRUNK UP BY THE CLOUDS,
SO A FIRM MIND THAT WORKS FOR OTHERS TURNS
THE POISON OF SENSE-OBJECTS INTO NECTAR.

Two things: first, one has to create a cloud of meditation in one's being; and the second thing is compassion -- one who works for others. Buddha insists on two things: meditation and compassion -- PRAGYAN and KARUNA. He says that sometimes it happens that a meditator can become too much selfish; then, too, something goes sour. Meditate, delight, but share the delight, go on sharing it; don't hoard it, because once you start hoarding, ego starts arising. Never hoard anything. The moment you get it, give it, and you will be getting more and more and more. The more you give, the more you get. Then everything becomes nectar. Everything is nectar -- we just have to know how to turn it, we have to know the alchemy.

The last sutra:

IF INEFFABLE, NEVER IS ONE UNSATISFIED,
IF UNIMAGINABLE, IT MUST BE BLISS ITSELF.
THOUGH FROM A CLOUD ONE FEARS THE THUNDERCLAP,
THE CROPS RIPEN WHEN FROM IT POURS THE RAIN.

THE INEFFABLE... Saraha says: Don t ask me what it is -- it is ineffable, it cannot be said. It cannot be expressed. No language exists which can express it. But it can be experienced. Look at my contentment! Look how satisfied I have become! You have known me before too -- how restless I was, how unsatisfied with everything. And all was available; I was your favorite, all was available to me -- yet I was not satisfied. Now, look! I am standing in a cemetery ground, not even a roof over my head! And I don't live with Kings and queens; I am living with this arrowsmith woman. But look into my eyes... how contented I am. Can't you see something ineffable has happened? Can't you feel my vibe? Are you so dull and dead that you need explanations?

IF INEFFABLE, NEVER IS ONE UNSATISFIED...

That is the only criterion whether a man has attained to truth or not he will never be unsatisfied. His contentment is absolute. You cannot drag him out of his contentment. You cannot make him discontented. Whatsoever happens he remains the same, contented. Success or failure, life or death, friends or no friends, lovers or no lovers -- it makes no difference. His tranquility, his stillness, is utterly absolute. He is centered.

IF INEFFABLE, NEVER IS ONE UNSATISFIED...

If that which cannot be said has happened, then there is only one way to know it and that way is to see the contentment.

IF UNIMAGINABLE, IT MUST BE BLISS ITSELF...

And I know, he says, you cannot imagine what has happened to me. How can you imagine? because you have never known it. Imagination is always repeating the same that you have known.
You can imagine happiness; you have known bits and pieces of it. You can imagine unhappiness; you have known it, a lot of it. You can imagine happiness even if you don't know happiness -- you can imagine it as the contrary of unhappiness. But how can you imagine bliss? You have not known it. And there is nothing as contrary to it; it is not a duality. It is impossible to imagine.
So Saraha says: I can understand -- you cannot imagine it -- but I am not saying to imagine it. Look! It is present herenow. And if you cannot imagine it, that also is one of the criterions of truth: truth cannot be imagined. It can be seen, but not imagined. You can have a vision of it, but you cannot dream about it. And that is the difference between a dream and a vision.
Dream is yours: vision is not yours.
Christ saw God, and the scriptures say he saw the vision. Now, the psychoanalyst will say it was just a dream; he does not know the difference between a dream and a vision. A dream is YOURS; you were imagining; you created it; it was your fantasy. A vision is something out of the blue that you have never thought about not even a part of it has ever been thought by you. It is so utterly new -- then it is a vision. Vision is from God; dream is from your mind.

IF UNIMAGINABLE, IT MUST BE BLISS ITSELF.

Look at me -- you cannot imagine what has happened. Can't you see it... you have eyes to see. Look, watch, hold my hand! Come closer to me, just be vulnerable to me, so my vibration can vibrate your being -- and the unimaginable and the ineffable can be experienced.

THOUGH FROM A CLOUD ONE FEARS THE THUNDERCLAP...

And Saraha says: I know... he must have seen the king a little afraid. I see it every day: people come to me and I see them trembling, afraid, fearful, and they say, "We are afraid, Osho." I know! Saraha must have seen the king was trembling deep inside maybe not on the outside. He was a great king, a very disciplined man he must have been; he must have been standing erect, but deep down he must have been afraid.
It always happens when you are close by a Saraha-like man, or a Buddha-like man, you are bound to be afraid. Just the other night a young man came and he said, "But why am I afraid of you'?. You have not done anything wrong to me -- why am I afraid of you? I love you, certainly, but why am I afraid of you?"
It is natural. When you come close to an abyss, what do you expect? You will be afraid. There is every possibility you may fall into it and will not be able to recover yourself again. It is going to be irrevocable, irrecoverable -- completely, utterly gone you will be in it. You will not be able to recapitulate. Fear is natural.
Saraha says:

THOUGH FROM A CLOUD ONE FEARS THE THUNDERCLAP...

He says: I am like a cloud and you are afraid because of the thunderclap, of the lightning. But remember:

THE CROPS RIPEN WHEN FROM IT POURS THE RAIN.

But if you allow me to rain on you, the seeds will sprout, sir, and the man that is still hidden behind you, still not yet born, will be born; you will be able to ripen, to mature; you will be able to blossom. I invite you, says Saraha, for a great harvest... the harvest of consciousness, the harvest of awareness.