Tantra

THE TANTRA VISION, VOL. 1

Chapter 9: Mind immaculate in its very being

 

 

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WHEN (IN WINTER) STILL WATER BY THE WIND IS STIRRED,
IT TAKES (AS ICE) THE SHAPE AND TEXTURE OF A ROCK.
WHEN THE DELUDED ARE DISTURBED BY INTERPRETATIVE THOUGHTS,
THAT WHICH IS AS YET UNPATTERNED TURNS VERY HARD AND SOLID.

MIND IMMACULATE IN ITS VERY BEING, CAN NEVER BE
POLLUTED BY SAMSARA'S OR NIRVANA'S IMPURITIES.
A PRECIOUS JEWEL DEEP IN MUD
WILL NOT SHINE, THOUGH IT HAS LUSTER.

KNOWLEDGE SHINES NOT IN THE DARK, BUT WHEN THE DARKNESS
IS ILLUMINED, SUFFERING DISAPPEARS (AT ONCE).
SHOOTS GROW FROM THE SEED
AND LEAVES FROM THE SHOOTS.

HE WHO THINKS OF THE MIND IN TERMS OF ONE
OR MANY, CASTS AWAY THE LIGHT AND ENTERS THE WORLD.
INTO A (RAGING) FIRE HE WALKS WITH OPEN EYES --
WHO COULD BE MORE DESERVING OF COMPASSION?

OH, THE BEAUTY OF EXISTENCE! The sheer delight of it! the joy, the song, and the dance! But we are not here. We appear to exist, but we are almost non-existential -- because we have lost contact with existence, we have lost our roots in it. We are like an uprooted tree. The sap flows no more, the juice has dried up. No more flowers will come, or fruits. Not even birds come to take shelter in us.
We are dead! because we are not yet born. We have taken physical birth as our birth; that is not our birth. We are still existing as potentialities; we have not become actual. Hence the misery. The actual is blissful, the potential is miserable. Why is it so? Because the potential cannot be at rest. The potential is continuously restless -- it HAS to be restless. Something is going go happen. It hangs in the air. It is in limbo.
It is like a seed how can the seed rest and relax? The rest and relaxation is known only by the flowers. The seed HAS to be deep in anguish; the seed has to continuously tremble. The trembling is: whether he will be able to become actual? whether he will find the right soil? whether he will find the right climate? whether he will find the right sky? Is it going to happen? or will he simply die without being born? The seed trembles inside. The seed has anxiety, anguish. The seed cannot sleep; the seed suffers from insomnia.
The potential is ambitious, the potential longs for the future. Have you not watched this in your own being? that you are continuously longing for something to happen and it is not happening, that you are continuously hankering, hoping, desiring, dreaming... and it is not happening! And life goes on flowing by. Life goes on slipping out of your hands. And death comes closer, and you are not yet actual. Who knows? Which will come first? -- actualization, realization, blossoming, or maybe death? Who knows? Hence the fear, the anguish, the trembling.
Soren Kierkegaard has said man is a trembling. Yes, man is a trembling because man is a seed. Friedrich Nietzsche has said man is a bridge. Exactly right! Man is not a place to rest! It is a bridge to pass over. Man is a door to go through. You cannot rest at being man. Man is not a being: man is an arrow on the way... a rope stretched between two eternities. Man is a tension. It is only man who suffers from anxiety, the only animal on the earth who suffers from anxiety. What can be the cause of it?
It is only man who exists as potentiality. A dog is actual; there is nothing else to happen. A buffalo is actual; there is nothing more it has already happened. Whatsoever could happen, has happened. You cannot say to a buffalo, "You are not yet a buffalo'' -- that will be foolish. But you can say to man, "You are not yet a man." You can say to man, "You are incomplete." You cannot say to a dog, "You are incomplete." That will be stupid to say. All dogs are fully complete.
Man has a possibility, a future. Man is an opening. So the constant fear: whether we are going to make it or not? whether we are going to make it this time or not? How many times have we missed before? Are we going to miss again? That's why we are not happy. The existence goes on celebrating. There is great singing, there is great joy, there is great rejoicing! The whole existence is always in an orgy. It is a carnival. The whole existence at each moment is in an orgasm! Somehow man has become a stranger.
Man has forgotten the language of innocence. Man has forgotten how to relate with existence. Man has forgotten how to relate with himself! To relate with oneself means meditation. To relate with existence means prayer. Man has forgotten the very language. That's why we appear like strangers -- strangers in our own home! strangers to ourselves. We don't know who we are, and we don't know why we are, and we don't know for what we go on existing. It seems to be an endless waiting... waiting for Godot.
Nobody knows whether Godot is ever to come or not. In fact, who is this Godot? Nobody knows even that -- but one has to wait for something, so one creates some idea and waits for it. God is that idea. Heaven is that idea. Nirvana is that idea. One has to wait because one has somehow to fill one's being, otherwise one feels very empty. Waiting gives a sense of purpose and a direction. You can feel good; at least you are waiting. It has not happened yet, but it is going to happen some day. What is it that is going to happen?
We have not even raised the right question. What to say about the right answer? We have NOT even asked the right question. And remember, once the right question is asked, the right answer is not very far away it is just by the corner. In fact, it is hidden in the right question itself. If you go on asking the right question, you will find the right answer through that very questioning.
So the first thing today that I would like to tell you is that we are missing, we are continuously missing -- because we have taken mind as the language to relate with existence. And mind is a way to cut yourself off from existence. It is to put yourself off; it is not the way to put yourself on. THINKING IS THE BARRIER. Thoughts are like China Walls around you, and you are groping through the thoughts. You cannot touch reality. Not that reality is far away. God is just close by -- just a prayer away at the most. But if you are doing something like thinking, brooding, analyzing, interpreting, philosophizing, then you start falling away and away and away, the further and further away you fall from reality -- because the more thoughts you have, the more difficult it is to look through them. They create a great fog. They create blindness.
This is one of the fundamentals of Tantra, that a thinking mind is a missing mind, that thinking is not the language to relate with reality. Then what is the language to relate with reality? Non-thinking. Words are meaningless with reality. Silence is meaningful. Silence is pregnant; words are just dead. One has to learn the language of silence.
And then something exactly like this happens: you were in your mother's womb you have forgotten about it completely, but for nine months you had not spoken a single word... but you were together, in deep silence. You were one with the mother; there was no barrier between you and the mother. You didn't exist as a separate self. In that deep silence, your mother and you were one. There was tremendous unity. It was not union, it was unity. You were not two, so it was not union -- it was simple unity You were not two.
The day you become silent again, the same happens: again you fall into the womb of existence; again you relate -- you relate in a totally new way. Not exactly totally new, because you had known it in your mother's womb, but you have forgotten it. That's what I mean when I say man has forgotten the language to relate. That is the way: as you related with your mother in her womb -- every vibe was conveyed to the mother; every vibe of the mother was conveyed to you. There was simple understanding; no misunderstanding existed between you and your mother. Misunderstanding comes only when thinking comes in.
How can you misunderstand somebody without thinking'? Can you? Can you misunderstand me if you don't think about me? How can you misunderstand? And how can you understand me if you think? Impossible. The moment you think, you have started interpreting. The moment you think, you are not looking at me; you are avoiding me. You are hiding behind your thoughts. Your thoughts come from your past. I am here present. I am a statement herenow, and you bring your past.
You must know about the octopus. When the octopus wants to hide, it releases black ink around itself, a cloud of black ink. Then nobody can see the octopus. It is simply lost in its own created cloud of black ink; it is its safety measure. Exactly the same is happening when you release a cloud of thoughts around you -- you are lost into it. Then you cannot relate and nobody can relate to you. It is impossible to relate to a mind; you can relate only to a consciousness.
A consciousness has no past. A mind is just past and nothing else. So the first thing Tantra says is that you have to learn the language of orgasm. Again, when you are making love to a woman or to a man, what happens? For a few seconds -- it is very rare; it is becoming even rarer and rarer as man is becoming more and more civilized -- for a few seconds again you are no more in the mind. With a shock you are cut off from the mind. In a jump you are outside the mind. For those few seconds of orgasm when you are out of the mind, you again relate. Again you are back in the womb... in the womb of your woman or in the womb of your man. You are no more separate. Again there is unity -- not union.
When you start making love to a woman, there is the beginning of a union. But when orgasm comes there is no union there is unity; the duality is lost. What happens in that deep, peak experience?
Tantra reminds you again and again that whatsoever happens in that peak moment is the language to relate with existence. It is the language of the guts; it is the language of your very being. So either think in terms of when you were in the womb of your mother, or think in terms of when you are again lost into the womb of your beloved. And for a few seconds mind simply does not work!
Those moments of no-mind are your glimpses into Samadhi, glimpses of Satori, glimpses of God. We have forgotten that language and that language has to be learnt again. Love is the language.
The language of love is silent. When two lovers are really in deep harmony, in what Carl Jung used to call synchronicity, when their vibes are just synchronizing with each other, when they are both vibrating on the same wavelength, then there is silence, then lovers don't like to talk. It is only husbands and wives who talk. Lovers fall silent.
In fact, the husband and wife cannot keep silence because language is the way to avoid the other. If you are not avoiding the other, if you are not talking, it becomes very embarrassing, the presence of the other. The husband and wife immediately release their ink. Anything will do, but they release the ink around themselves; they are lost in the cloud, then there is no problem.
Language is not a way to relate more or less, it is a way to avoid. When you are in deep love you may hold the hand of your beloved, but you will be silent... utter silence, not a ripple. In that rippleless lake of your consciousness, something is conveyed, the message is given. It is a wordless message.
Tantra says one has to learn the language of love, the language of silence, the language of each other's presence. the language of the heart, the language of the guts.
We have learnt a language which is not existential. We have learnt an alien language -- utilitarian, of course; fulfills a certain purpose, of course; but as far as higher exploration of consciousness is concerned it is a barrier. On the lower level it is okay -- in the marketplace of course you need a certain language: silence won't do. But as you move deeper and higher, language won't do.

JUST THE OTHER DAY, I was talking about the chakras; I talked about two *chak-ras: MULADHAR chakra and SVADHISTHAN chakra.'Muladhar' means the base, the root. It is the sex center, or you can call it the life center, the birth center. It is from muladhar that you are born. It is from your mother's muladhar and your father's muladhar that you have attained to this body. The next chakra was svadhisthan: it means the abode of the self -- it is the death chakra. It is a very strange name to give to the death chakra: abode of the self, svadhisthan -- where you exist really. In death? -- yes.
When you die, you come to your pure existence -- because only that dies which you are not. The body dies. The body is born out of the muladhar. When you die the body disappears, but you? -- no. Whatsoever has been given by the muladhar is taken away by svadhisthan. Your mother and father have given you a certain mechanism -- that is taken away in death. But you? -- you existed even before your father and mother had known each other; you have existed always.
Jesus says -- somebody asks him about Abraham, what he thinks about the prophet Abraham, and he says: Abraham? I am before Abraham ever was.
Abraham existed almost two thousand, three thousand years before Jesus, and he says: I am before Abraham was!
What is he talking about? As far as bodies are concerned, how can he be before Abraham? He is not talking about the body -- he is talking about I-am-ness, his pure being... that is eternal.
This name, svadhisthan, is beautiful. It is exactly the center that in Japan is known as HARA. That's why in Japan suicide is called HARAKIRI -- to die or to kill yourself through the hara center. This svadhisthan takes only that which has been given by the muladhar, but that which has been coming from eternity, your consciousness, is not taken away.
Hindus have been great explorers of the consciousness. They called it svadhisthan because when you die then you know who you are. Die in love and you will know who you are. Die in meditation and you will know who you are. Die to the past and you will know who you are. Die to the mind and you will know who you are. Death is the way to know.
In ancient days in India, the Master was called THE DEATH -- because you have to die in the Master, the disciple has to die in the Master... only then does he come to know who he is.
These two centers have been very much poisoned by the society. These are the centers easily available to the society. Beyond these two are five more centers. The third is MANIPURA, the fourth is ANAHATA, the fifth is VISUDDHI, the sixth is AJNA, and the seventh is SAHASRAR.
The third center, manipura, is the center of all your sentiments, emotions. We go on repressing our emotions in the manipura. It means the diamond -- life is valuable because of sentiments, emotions, laughter, crying, tears and smiles. Life is valuable because of all these things. These are the glory of life -- hence the chakra is called manipura, the diamond chakra.
Only man is capable of having THIS precious diamond. Animals cannot laugh; naturally, they cannot cry either. Tears are a certain dimension which is available to man only. The beauty of tears, the beauty of laughter; the poetry of tears and the poetry of laughter is available to man only. All other animals exist with only two chakras: muladhar and svadhisthan. They are born and they die; between the two there is nothing much. If you are also born and you die, you are an animal -- you are not man yet. And many, millions of people exist only with these two chakras; they never go beyond them.
We have been taught to repress sentiments. We have been taught not to be sentimental. We have been taught sentimentality does not pay -- be practical, be hard; don't be soft, don't be vulnerable! otherwise you will be exploited. Be hard! At least show that you are hard, at least pretend that you are dangerous, that you are not a soft being. Create fear around you. Don't laugh, because if you laugh you cannot create fear around you. Don't weep -- if you weep you show that you are afraid yourself. Don't show your human limitations. Pretend that you are perfect.
Repress the third center and you become a soldier, not a man but a soldier -- an army man, a false man.
Much work is done in Tantra to relax this third center. Emotions have to be relieved, relaxed. When you feel like crying you have to cry; when you feel like laughing you have to laugh. You have to drop this nonsense of repression, you have to learn expression -- because only through your sentiments, your emotions, your sensitivity, do you come to that vibration through which communication is possible.
Have you not seen it? You can say as much as you want, and nothing is said; but a tear rolls down on your cheek and everything is said. A tear can say much more. You can talk for hours and it won't do, and a tear can say all. You can go on saying, "I am very happy, this and that..." but your face will show just the opposite. A little laughter, a real authentic laughter, and you need not say anything -- the laughter says all. When you see your friend, your face beams, flashes with joy.
The third center has to be made more and more available. It is against thinking, so if you allow the third center you will relax in your tense mind more easily. Be authentic, sensitive; touch more, feel more, laugh more, cry more. And remember, you cannot do more than is needed; you cannot exaggerate. You cannot even bring a single tear more than is needed, and you cannot laugh more than is needed. So don't be afraid, and don't be miserly.
Tantra allows life all its emotions.
These are the three lower centers -- lower, not in any sense of evaluation -- these are the three lower centers, lower rungs of the ladder.
Then comes the fourth center, the heart center, called anahata The word is beautiful.'ANAHATA' means unstruck sound it means exactly what Zen people mean when they say, "Do you hear the sound of one hand clapping?" unstruck sound. The heart is just in the middle: three centers below it, three centers above it. And the heart is the door from the lower to the higher, or from the higher to the lower. The heart is like a crossroads.
And the heart has been completely bypassed. You have not been taught to be heartful. You have not even been allowed to go into the realm of the heart, because it is very dangerous. It is the center of the soundless sound; it is the non-linguistic center -- unstruck sound. Language is struck sound; we have to create it with our vocal chords; it has to be struck -- it is two hands clapping. The heart is one hand clapping. In the heart there is no word; it is wordless.
We have avoided the heart completely, we have bypassed it. We move in such a way in our being as if the heart does not exist -- or, at the most, as if it is just a pumping mechanism for breathing, that's all. It is not. The lungs are not the heart. The heart is hidden deep behind the lungs. And it is not physical either. It is the place from where love arises. That's why love is not a sentiment. And sentimental love belongs to the third center, not to the fourth.
Love is not just sentimental. Love has more depth than sentiments; love has more validity than sentiments. Sentiments are momentary. More or less, the sentiment of love is misunderstood as the experience of love. One day you fall in love with a man or a woman, and the next day it is gone -- and you call it love. It is not love. It is a sentiment: you liked the woman -- liked, remember, not loved -- it was a'like', just as you like icecream. It was a like. Likes come and go; likes are momentary; they cannot stay long; they don't have any capacity to stay long. You like a woman, you loved her, and finished! the like is finished. It is just like you liked ice-cream; you have eaten it -- now you don't look at the ice-cream at all. And if somebody goes on giving you more ice-cream, you will say, "Now it is nauseating  -- stop! I cannot take any more."
Liking is not love. Never misunderstand liking for love, otherwise your whole life you will be just a driftwood... you will be drifting from one person to another; never will intimacy grow.
The fourth center, the anahata, is very significant, because it is in the heart that for the first time you were related to your mother. It was through the HEART that you were related to your mother, not through the head. In deep love, in deep orgasm, again you are related through the heart, not through the head. In meditation, in prayer, the same happens: you are related with existence through the heart -- heart-to-heart. Yes, it is a dialogue heart-to-heart, not head-to-head. It is non-linguistic.
And the heart center is the center from where the soundless sound arises. If you relax into the heart center, you will hear OMKAR, AUM. That is a great discovery. Those who have entered the heart, they hear a continuous chanting inside their being which sounds like aum. Have you ever heard anything like a chanting which goes on by itself -- not that you DO it.
That's why I am not in favour of mantras. You can go on chanting aum, aum, aum, and you can create a mental substitute for the heart. It is not going to help. It is a deception. And you can go on chanting for years, and you can create a false sound within yourself as if your heart is speaking -- it is not. To know the heart you are not to chant aum -- you have just to be silent. One day, suddenly the mantra is there. One day, when you have fallen silent, suddenly you hear the sound is coming from nowhere. It is arising out of you from the innermost core. It is the sound of your inner silence. Just as in a silent night, there is a certain sound, the sound of the silence, exactly like.that on a very, very much deeper level a sound arises in you.
It arises -- let me remind you again and again -- it is not that you bring it in; it is not that you repeat aum, aum. No, you don't say a single word. You are simply quiet. You are simply silent. And it bursts forth like a spring... suddenly it starts flowing, it is there. You hear it -- you don't say it, you hear it.
That is the meaning when Mohammedans say that Mohammed HEARD the Koran -- that is the meaning. That is exactly what happens at the innermost core of your heart. Not that you say it: you hear it. Mohammed heard the Koran -- he heard it happening inside. He was really puzzled; he had never heard anything like this. It was so unknown, it was so unfamiliar. The story says that he became ill. It was so weird! When suddenly, sitting in your room, if one day you start hearing inside aum, aum, or ANYTHING, you will start feeling, "Am I going mad?" You are not saying it, nobody else is saying it. Are you going mad?
Mohammed was sitting on a hilltop when he heard it. He came back home trembling, perspiring; he had a high fever. He really became disturbed. He told his wife, "Just bring all the blankets and cover me! I have never had such a trembling; a great fever has come to me." But his wife could see that his face was illuminated: "What type of fever is this? His eyes are burning, afire with something tremendously beautiful. A grace has entered with him in the house. A great silence has fallen over the house." Even his wife started hearing something. She said to Mohammed,'l don't think it is a fever -- I think God has blessed you. Don't be afraid! What has happened? Tell me!"
His wife was the first Mohammedan -- Khadija was her name. She was the first convert. She said, "I can SEE. God has happened to you, something has happened to you, something is flowing from your heart all over the place. You have become luminous! You have never been like this -- something extraordinary has happened. Tell me why you are so much worried and trembling. Maybe it is new, but you tell me."
And Mohammed told her, very much afraid of what she would think, but she become converted -- she was the first Mohammedan.
It has happened so always. Hindus say the Vedas were recited by God Himself. It simply means that they were heard. In India, for the holy scriptures we have a word; the word is SHRUTI -- SHRUTI means that which has been heard.
At this center of the heart, anahata chakra, you hear. But you have not heard anything inside you -- no sound, no omkar, no mantra. That simply means you have avoided the heart. The waterfall is there, and the sound of running water is there -- but you have avoided it, you have bypassed, you have taken some other route, you have taken a shortcut. The shortcut simply goes from the third center avoiding the fourth. The fourth is the most dangerous center because it is the center out of which trust is born, faith is born. And the mind has to avoid it. If the mind does not avoid it, then there will be no possibility for doubt. Mind lives through doubt.
This is the fourth center. And Tantra says through love you will come to know this fourth center.
The fifth center is called VISUDDHI. Visuddhi means purity. Certainly, after love has happened there is purity and innocence -- never before it. Only love purifies AND only love -- nothing else purifies. Even the ugliest person in love becomes beautiful. Love is nectar. It cleanses all poisons. So the fifth chakra is called visuddhi -- visuddhi means purity, absolute purity. It is the throat center.
And Tantra says: Only speak when you have come to the fifth center via the fourth -- only speak through love, otherwise don't speak. Speak through compassion, otherwise don't speak! What is point of speaking? If you have come through the heart and if you have heard God speaking there or God running there like a waterfall, if you have heard the sound of God, the sound of one hand clapping, then you are allowed to speak, then your throat center can convey the message, then something can be poured even into words. When you HAVE it, it can be poured even into words.
Very few people come to the fifth center, very rarely -- because they don't come to the fourth even, so how can they come to the fifth? It is very rare. Somewhere a Christ, a Buddha, a Saraha, they come to the fifth. The beauty of even their words is tremendous -- what to say about their silence? Even their words carry silence. They speak and yet they speak not. They say and they say the unsayable, the ineffable, the inexpressible.
You also use the throat, but that is not visuddhi. That chakra is completely dead. When that chakra starts, your words have honey in them, then your words have a fragrance, then your words have a music to them, a dance. Then whatsoever you say is poetry, whatsoever you utter is sheer joy.
And the sixth chakra is AJNA -- ajna means order. With the sixth chakra you are in order, never before it. With the sixth chakra, you become the master, never before it. Before it you were a slave. With the sixth chakra, whatsoever you say will happen, whatsoever you desire will happen. With the sixth chakra you have will, never before it. Before it, will exists not. But there is a paradox in it.
With the fourth chakra ego disappears. With the fifth chakra all impurities disappear, and then you have will -- so you cannot harm through your will. In fact, it is no more your will: it is God's will, because the ego disappears at the fourth, all impurities disappear at the fifth. Now you are the purest being, just a vehicle, instrumental, a messenger. Now you have will because you are not -- now God's will is your will.
Very rarely does a person come to this sixth chakra, because this is the last, in a way. In the world, this is the last. Beyond this is the seventh, but then you enter a totally different world, a separate reality. The sixth is the last boundary line, the checkpost.
The seventh is SAHASRAR -- SAHASRAR means one-thousand-petalled lotus. When your energy moves to the seventh, sahasrar, you become a lotus. Now you need not go to any other flower for honey -- now other bees start coming to you. Now you attract bees from the whole earth, or even sometimes from other planets bees start coming to you. Your sahasrar has opened, your lotus is in full bloom. This lotus is Nirvana.
The lowest is muladhar. From the lowest life is born -- life of the body and the senses. With the seventh life is born -- life eternal, not of the body, not of the senses. This is the Tantra physiology. It is not a physiology of the medical books. Please don't look for it in the medical books -- it is not there. It is a metaphor, it is a way of speaking. It is a map to make things understandable. If you move this way, you will never come to that cloudedness of thoughts. If you avoid the fourth chakra, then you go into the head. Now, to be in the head means not to be in love; to be in thoughts means not to be in trust; to be thinking means not to be looking.

Now the sutras:

WHEN (IN WINTER) STILL WATER BY THE WIND IS STIRRED,
IT TAKES (AS ICE) THE SHAPE AND TEXTURE OF A ROCK.
WHEN THE DELUDED ARE DISTURBED BY INTERPRETATIVE THOUGHTS,
THAT WHICH IS AS YET UNPATTERNED TURNS VERY HARD AND SOLID.

Saraha says in WINTER -- listen to each word, meditate on each word:

... IN WINTER STILL WATER BY THE WIND IS STIRRED,
IT TAKES AS ICE THE SHAPE AND TEXTURE OF A ROCK.

A SILENT LAKE WITHOUT ANY RIPPLES is the metaphor for consciousness -- a silent lake without any ripples, waves, no stirring, no wind blowing -- that is the metaphor for consciousness. The lake is liquid, flowing, silent; it is not hard, it is not like rock. It is soft like roseflowers, it is vulnerable. It can flow in any direction, it is not blocked. It has flow and it has life and it has dynamism, but nothing is disturbed -- the lake is silent, peaceful. This is the state of consciousness.

IN WINTER...'winter' means when desires have arisen. Why call them'winter'? When desires arise you are in a cold desert land, because they never are fulfilled. Desires are a desert. They delude you, there is no fulfillment in them. They never come to any fruition -- it is a desert land, and very cold, cold like death. No life flows through desires. Desires block life, they don't help life.
So Saraha says: WHEN IN WINTER... when desires have arisen in you, that is the climate of winter... STILL WATER BY THE WIND IS STIRRED... and thoughts come, a thousand and one thoughts from every direction, that is the symbol for wind. Winds are coming, stormy winds are coming. You are in a desire state, full of lust, ambition, becoming, and thoughts arise.
In fact, desires invite thoughts. Unless you desire, thoughts cannot come. Just start a desire and immediately you will see thoughts have started coming. Just a moment before there was not a single thought, and then a car passes by and a desire has arisen: you would like to have this car. Now, a thousand and one thoughts, immediately they are there. Desire invites thought. So when there is desire, thoughts will come from every direction, winds will blow upon the lake of consciousness. And desire is cold, and thoughts go on stirring the lake.

WHEN IN WINTER STILL WATER BY THE WIND IS STIRRED,
IT TAKES AS ICE THE SHAPE AND TEXTURE OF A ROCK.

Mm? -- then the lake starts becoming frozen. It starts becoming solid, rocklike. It loses fluidity. It becomes frozen. This is what in Tantra is called the mind. Meditate over it. The mind and consciousness are not two things but two states, two phases of the same phenomenon. Consciousness is liquid, flowing; mind is rocklike, like ice. Consciousness is like water. Consciousness is like water, mind is like ice -- it is the same thing. The same water becomes ice, and the ice can be melted again -- through love, through warmth, it can be melted again and will become water.
And the third stage is when water evaporates and becomes invisible and disappears -- that is Nirvana, cessation. You cannot even see it now. Water is liquid, but you can see; when it evaporates, it simply disappears -- it goes into the unmanifested. These are three states of water, and these are three states of mind too. Mind means ice, consciousness means liquid water, Nirvana means evaporation.

WHEN THE DELUDED ARE DISTURBED BY INTERPRETATIVE THOUGHTS,
THAT WHICH IS AS YET UNPATTERNED TURNS VERY HARD AND SOLID.

The lake is unpatterned. You can pour water into any vessel: it will take the shape of the vessel. But you cannot pour ice into any vessel: it will resist, it will fight.
Two types of people come to me: one who comes like water; his surrender is simple, very innocent, childlike; he does not resist. Work starts immediately. No need to waste time. Then somebody comes with great resistance, with fear; he is protecting himself, armoring himself. Then he is like ice. It is very difficult to give him liquidity. He fights all efforts to make him liquid. He is afraid he may lose his identity. He will lose solidity -- that's true -- but not identity. Yes, he will lose the identity that solidity has, but that solidity is bringing misery and nothing else.
When you are solid, you are like a dead rock. Nothing can flower in you, and you cannot flow. When you are flowing, you have juice. When you are flowing, you have energy. When you are flowing, you have dynamism. When you are flowing, you are creative. When you are flowing, you are part of God. When you have become frozen, you are no more part of this great flow, you are no more part of this great ocean, you have become a small island, frozen, dead.

WHEN THE DELUDED ARE DISTURBED BY INTERPRETATIVE THOUGHTS,
THAT WHICH IS AS YET UNPATTERNED TURNS VERY HARD AND SOLID.

Be mindful. Be more and more in the state of unpatternedness, unstructuredness. Be without character -- that's what Tantra says. It is very hard, even to understand, because down the centuries we have been taught to have characters. Character means to have a rigid structure; character means the past; character means a certain enforced discipline. Character means you are no more free -- you only follow certain rules, you never go beyond those rules. You have a solidity. A man of character is a solid man.
Tantra says: Drop character, be fluid, more flowing, live moment-to-moment. It does not mean irresponsibility it means greater responsibility because it means greater awareness. When you can live through a character, you need not be aware -- character takes care. When you live through a character, you can fall asleep easily; there is no need to be awake; the character will continue in a mechanical form. But when you don't have any character, when you don't have any hard structure around you, you have to be alert each moment. Each moment you have to see what you are doing. Each moment you have to respond to the new situation.
A man of character is a dead man. He has a past but no future. A man who has no character... and I am not using the word in the same sense as when you use it about somebody, that he is characterless. When you use that word'characterless' you are not using it rightly, because whomsoever you call characterless has a CHARACTER. Maybe it is against the society, but he has a character; you can depend on him too.
The saint has a character, so does the sinner -- they both have characters. You call the sinner characterless because you want to condemn his character; otherwise, he has a character. You can depend on him: give him the opportunity and he will steal -- he has a character. Give him the opportunity and he is bound to steal. Give him the opportunity and he will do something wrong -- he has a character. The moment he comes out of the jail he starts thinking, "What to do now?" Again he is thrown in the jail, again he comes out... no jail has ever cured anybody. In fact, jailing a person, imprisoning a person, makes him even more clever, that's all. Maybe you won't be able to catch him so easily next time, but nothing else; you just give him more cleverness. But he has a character.
Can't you see? -- a drunkard has a character, and a very, very stubborn character. A thousand and one times he thinks not to drink any more, and again the character wins over and he is defeated.
The sinner has a character, so has the saint.
What Tantra means by characterlessness is freedom from character -- the character of the saint and the character of the sinner, both make you solid like rocks, ice. You don't have any freedom, you can't move easily. If a new situation arises you cannot respond in a new way -- you have a character, how can you respond in a new way? You have to respond in the old way. The old, the known, the well practised -- you are skilled in it.
A character becomes an alibi: you need not live.
Tantra says: Be characterless, be without character. Characterlessness is freedom.
Saraha was saying to the king: Sir, I am characterless. You want to put me back into my old solidity of being a scholar, a pundit in the court? You want to put me back into my past? I have dropped out of it. I am a characterless person. Look at me! Now I don't follow any rules -- I follow my awareness. Look at me... I don't have any discipline -- I have only my consciousness. My only shelter is my consciousness. I live out of it. I don't have any conscience -- my consciousness is my only shelter.
Conscience is character and conscience is a trick of the society. The society creates a conscience in you so that you need not have any consciousness. It makes you follow certain rules such a long time; it rewards you if you follow, it punishes you if you don't follow. It makes you a robot. Once it has made the mechanism of conscience in you, it can be free of you -- then you can be trusted: you will be a slave your whole life. It has put a conscience in you just as if Delgado had put an electrode in you; it is a subtle electrode. But it has killed you. You are no more a flow, no more a dynamism.
Saraha says to the king: I am unstructured, sir. I have dropped out of all patterns. I don't have any identity any more. I live in the moment.

MIND IMMACULATE IN ITS VERY BEING CAN NEVER BE
POLLUTED BY SAMSARA'S OR NIRVANA'S IMPURITIES.
A PRECIOUS JEWEL DEEP IN MUD
WILL NOT SHINE, THOUGH IT HAS LUSTER.

SAYS SARAHA: MIND IMMACULATE... when the mind has no thoughts -- that is when the mind is pure consciousness, when the mind is a silent lake without any ripples, no interpretative thoughts, no analytical thoughts, when the mind is not philosophizing but just is....
Tantra says: Walking, walk; sitting, sit; being, be! Exist without thinking. Let life flow through you without any blocks of thoughts. Let life flow through you without any fear. There is nothing to fear -- you have nothing to lose. There is nothing to fear because death will take only that which birth has given to you. AND it is going to take it anyway, so there is nothing to fear.
Let life flow through you.

MIND IMMACULATE IN ITS VERY BEING CAN NEVER BE
POLLUTED BY SAMSARA'S OR NIRVANA'S IMPURITIES.

And Saraha says: You think I have become impure so you have come to help me and bring me to the world of the pure people? I am now in an immaculate state of mind. I am no more solid ice. Nothing can pollute me any more, because no thought can create a ripple in me -- I have no desire.
That's why -- a tremendous saying -- he says:

... POLLUTED BY SAMSARA'S OR NIRVANA'S IMPURITIES.

No, it is not possible. Not even Nirvana can pollute me! What to say about Samsara? This arrowsmith woman cannot pollute me, neither can this cremation ground pollute me, nor can my mad activities pollute me -- nothing can pollute me! I am beyond pollution. I am no more in a state where pollution is possible. Even Nirvana cannot pollute me!
What does he mean when he says'even Nirvana, even Nirvana's impurities'? Saraha is saying: I don't desire the world, I don't desire even Nirvana.
To desire is to be impure. Desire IS impure -- WHAT you desire is irrelevant. You can desire money; it is impure. You can desire power; it is impure. You can desire God; it is impure. You can desire Nirvana; it is impure. Desire is impure -- the object does not matter. What you desire is meaningless... desire!
The moment desire comes, thoughts come. Once the climate of cold winter is there, the desire, then winds start blowing. If you start thinking how to attain to Nirvana, how to become Enlightened, you will be inviting thoughts, your lake will be stirred. Again you will start becoming frozen in pieces; you will become solid, rocklike, dead. You will lose the flow -- and flow is life, and flow is God, and flow is Nirvana.
So Saraha says: Nothing can pollute me -- don't be worried about me. I have come to a point, I have attained to a point, where impurity is not possible.

A PRECIOUS JEWEL DEEP IN MUD
WILL NOT SHINE, THOUGH IT HAS LUSTER.

You can throw me into mud, into dirty mud, but now dirty mud cannot make me dirty. I have attained to that precious jewelness, I have become a precious jewel now -- I have understood who I am! Now you can throw this jewel into any mud. any dirt; maybe it will not shine, but it cannot lose its preciousness -- it will still have luster. It will still be the same precious jewel.
A moment comes when you look into yourself and you see your transcendental consciousness, then nothing can pollute you.
Truth is not an experience: truth is experiencing. Truth is not an object of awareness: truth is awareness. Truth is not outside: truth is your interiority. Says Soren Kierkegaard: Truth is subjectivity. If truth is like an object, you can get it and lose it; but if truth is you, how can you lose it? Once you have known, you have known; then there is no going back. If truth is some experience, it can become polluted -- but truth is experiencing, it is your innermost consciousness. It is you, it is your being.

KNOWLEDGE SHINES NOT IN THE DARK, BUT WHEN THE DARKNESS
IS ILLUMINED, SUFFERING DISAPPEARS (AT ONCE).

SAYS SARAHA: KNOWLEDGE SHINES NOT IN THE DARK... the darkness of the mind, the darkness of a structured being, the darkness of ego, the darkness of thoughts -- a thousand and one thoughts -- the darkness that you go on creating around yourself like an octopus. Because of that darkness that you go on creating, your innermost jewel shines not; otherwise it is a lamp of light. Once you stop creating this ink around you, this black cloud around you, then there is illumination.
And SUFFERING DISAPPEARS AT ONCE! This is the Tantra message, a great liberating message. Other religions say you will have to wait. Christianity says, Islam says, Judaism says, you will have to wait for the Last Judgement Day when everything will be reckoned with -- what good you have done, what bad you have done -- and then you will be rewarded or punished accordingly. You have to wait for the future, for the Judgement Day.
Hindus, Jains and others say you have to balance your bad acts with good acts; bad karma has to be dropped and good karma has to be evolved. You will have to wait for that too. It will take time. For millions of lives you have been doing millions of things, good and bad -- to sort it out, to balance it, it is going to be impossible.
The Christian and the Judaic and the Mohammedan Judgement Day is easier: at least you will not have to reckon with everything you have done. God will take care, He will judge -- that is His business. But Jainism and Hinduism say you have to look into your bad karmas, drop the bad, replace it with good -- that too, it seems, will take millions of lives.
Tantra is liberating. Tantra says: SUFFERING DISAPPEARS AT ONCE. The moment you look into yourself, that single moment of inner vision and suffering disappears -- because suffering had never really existed. It was a nightmare. It is not because you have done bad karmas, that's why you are suffering; Tantra says you are suffering because you are dreaming. You have not done anything, neither good nor bad.
This is tremendously beautiful! Tantra says: You have not done anything -- God is the doer. The Whole is the doer -- how can you do anything? If you have been a saint, it was His will; if you have been a sinner, it was His will you have not done anything. How can you do? You are not separate from Him -- how can you do? You don't have any separate will -- it is His will, it is universal will.
So Tantra says you have not done anything good or bad. This has to be looked into, that's all. You have to see your innermost consciousness -- it is pure, eternally pure, unpolluted by Samsara or Nirvana. Once you have seen that vision of your pure consciousness, all suffering stops -- immediately, at once! It does not take even a split second.

SHOOTS GROW FROM THE SEED
AND LEAVES FROM THE SHOOTS.

And then things start changing. Then the seed is broken. The closed seed, Tantra says, is ego; the broken seed is egolessness. You put the seed in the earth: it cannot grow unless it disappears, unless it breaks, dies. Ego is like an egg; hidden behind it is the possibility of growth.
The seed, once broken, becomes egolessness. Then shoots come -- shoots are no-thoughts, no-desires, no-mind. Then leaves come -- leaves are knowing, experiencing, illumination, Satori, Samadhi. Then flowers come -- flowers are SATCHITANAND: being, consciousness, truth. And then the fruit -- the fruit is Nirvana, utter disappearance into existence. Once the seed is broken, everything follows. The only thing to be done is to put the seed into the earth, to allow it to disappear.
The Master is the earth and the disciple is the seed.

The last sutra:

HE WHO THINKS OF THE MIND IN TERMS OF ONE
OR MANY, CASTS AWAY THE LIGHT AND ENTERS THE WORLD.
INTO A (RAGING) FIRE HE WALKS WITH OPEN EYES --
WHO COULD BE MORE DESERVING OF COMPASSION?

HE WHO THINKS OF THE MIND IN TERMS OF ONE OR MANY...

THINKING IS ALWAYS DIVISIVE, IT DIVIDES. Thinking is like a prism, yes, mind is like a prism: a pure white ray enters into the prism and is divided into seven colors -- a rainbow is born. The world is a rainbow. Through the mind, through the prism of the mind, one single ray of light, one single ray of truth enters, and becomes a rainbow, a false thing -- the world is a false thing.
The mind divides. It cannot see the whole; it always thinks in terms of duality. Mind is dualistic. Or, mind is dialectical: it thinks in terms of thesis, antithesis. The moment you talk about love, hate is present. The moment you talk about compassion, anger is present. The moment you talk about greed, the opposite is present, charity is present. Talk about charity and greed is present -- they go together, they come in one package; they are not separate. But the mind continuously creates that.
You say'beautiful' and you have said'ugly' too. How can you say'beautiful' if you don't know what ugliness is? You have divided. Say'divine' and you have divided -- you have said'profane'. Say'God' and you have proposed a Devil too. How can you say'God' without a Devil there? They go together.
Mind divides, and reality is one, indivisibly one. Then what to do? Mind has to be put aside. Don't look through the prism. Push away the prism and let the white light, the oneness of existence penetrate your being.

HE WHO THINKS OF THE MIND IN TERMS OF ONE
OR MANY, CASTS AWAY THE LIGHT AND ENTERS THE WORLD.

If you think of one or many, dual or non-dual, if you think in concepts, you have entered the world -- you have cast away the light. There are only two possibilities: either cast away the mind or cast away the light. It is your choice.
A man came once to Ramakrishna, and he was praising Ramakrishna very highly, and he was touching Ramakrishna's feet again and again, and he was saying, "You are simply great -- you have renounced the world. You are such a great man! How much you have renounced!"
Ramakrishna listened, laughed and said, "Wait! You are going too far -- the truth is just the opposite."
The man said, "What do you mean?"
Ramakrishna said, "I have not renounced anything -- you have renounced. You are a great man!"
The man said, "Are you kidding? I have renounced? I am a WORLDLY man -- I indulge in things, a thousand and one greeds are there. I am very ambitious, I am very money-oriented. How can I be called great? No, no -- you must be joking."
And Ramakrishna said, "No. There were two possibilities before me, and two were the possibilities before you. You have chosen the world and renounced God: I have chosen God, renounced the world. Who is the real renouncer? You have renounced the greater, more valuable, and chosen the meaningless. And I have renounced the meaningless and chosen the valuable. If there is a great diamond and a stone, you have chosen the stone and renounced the diamond; I have chosen the diamond and renounced the stone -- and you call me a great man? a great man of renunciation? Have you gone mad?! I am indulging in God. I have chosen the Precious One."
Yes, I too agree with Ramakrishna. Mahavir, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Saraha -- they have not renounced. They have indulged, they have truly indulged. They have REALLY enjoyed -- they have celebrated existence. We who are running after ordinary stones, we are the great renouncers.
There are only two possibilities: either renounce the mind and choose the light, or renounce the light and choose the mind -- it Is up to you.

HE WHO THINKS OF THE MIND IN TERMS OF ONE
OR MANY, CASTS AWAY THE LIGHT AND ENTERS THE WORLD.
INTO A RAGING FIRE HE WALKS WITH OPEN EYES --
WHO COULD BE MORE DESERVING OF COMPASSION?

Saraha says: Sir, you have come to help me. You think you are compassionate towards me. Certainly, your whole kingdom will think that way -- that the king has gone to the cremation ground: how much is his compassion for Saraha! You think you have come because of compassion? You make me laugh... in fact, it is I who am feeling compassion for you, not otherwise. It is I who am feeling sorry for you -- you are a fool!

INTO A RAGING FIRE HE WALKS WITH OPEN EYES...

Your eyes appear to be open but they are not open. You are blind! You don't know what you are doing... Living in the world, do you think you are enjoying? You are just in a raging fire.
Exactly that happened when Buddha left his palace, and left the boundaries of his kingdom, and he told his driver, "Now you go back -- I am going into the jungle. I have renounced."
The old driver said, "Sir, I am old enough, I am more aged than your father -- listen to my advice. You are doing something utterly foolish! Leaving this beautiful kingdom, this palace, a beautiful wife, all the luxuries for which each human being hankers -- where are you going and for what?"
Buddha looked back at that marble palace and he said, "I see there only fire and nothing else, a raging fire. The whole world is burning with fire -- and I am not renouncing it because there is nothing to renounce in it. I am trying just to escape from the fire. No, I don't see any palace! and I don't see any joy there."
Saraha says to the king:

INTO A RAGING FIRE HE WALKS WITH OPEN EYES --
WHO COULD BE MORE DESERVING OF COMPASSION?

You think, sir, you have come because of compassion to help me? No, the situation is just the reverse: I feel compassion for you -- you are living in a raging fire. Beware! Be alert! Be awake! and get out of it as soon as possible, because all that is beautiful, all that is truthful, all that is good, is known and experienced only through the no-mind.

Tantra is a process of creating no-mind in you. No mind is the door of Nirvana.

 

Next: Chapter 10: Hingle de jibity dangely ji, Question 1

 

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