Baul Mystics, Vol. 2 The Beloved Chapter 6: Now Is Not Part Of Time, Question 4

The fourth question:

Question 4

I AM FULL OF ENERGY, FEELING PLAYFUL AND MORE AND MORE FRIENDLY, BUT I TALK TOO MUCH. WHAT TO DO?

BE playful about that too. Don't make it a serious thing. Talk playfully, and if nobody is listening, take it playfully -- because there is no necessity that somebody should listen. Don't feel offended. If it comes easy for you to talk, talk. If the other is not in the mood to listen, that is his problem. But don't feel offended. Just remain alert to what is happening in you, that you want to talk. It will happen to many people.

When meditation releases energy in you, it will find all sorts of ways to be expressed. It depends on what type of talent you have. If you are a painter and meditation releases energy, you will paint more, you will paint madly. You will forget everything, the whole world. Your whole energy will be poured into painting. If you are a dancer your meditation will make you a very deep dancer. It depends on the capacity, talent, individuality, personality. So nobody knows what will happen. Sometimes sudden changes will happen: a person who was very silent and was never talkative suddenly becomes talkative. He may have been repressed. He may not have been allowed ever to talk. When the energy arises and flows, he may start talking.

But there is nothing to be worried about. Don't repress it. If you feel it is getting too heavy for others, then just sit in your room and talk alone. There is no need for somebody else to listen to you. In fact, who listens? You can talk to the wall and it will be more human, because you will not be creating any suffering for anybody. You will not torture, you will not bore anybody.

Somebody has sent me a beautiful anecdote.

Pat Reilly was confessing his sins. "Sure, Father, I had sex seven times last night."

The priest asked, "How many women?"

"Ah, Father, there was only one woman," answered Pat.

To which the priest said, "Well, it is not as bad as I thought. Who is the woman?"

"My wife, Father."

"Well," said the priest, "there is nothing wrong with that, son."

"I know, Father, but I just had to tell someone," replied Pat.

There are moments when you just have to tell someone. If you don't tell, it becomes heavy on you. If you tell, you are released and relaxed. If you can find a sympathetic listener, good; otherwise just talk to yourself. But don't repress it. Repressed, it will become a burden on you. Just sit in front of the wall and have a good talk. In the beginning you will feel it a little crazy, but the more you do it, the more you will see the beauty of it. It is less violent. It does not waste somebody else's time, and it works the same way, it does the same: you are relieved. And after a good talk with the wall you will feel very, very relaxed. In fact, everybody needs to do it. The world would be better and more silent if people started talking to the walls.

Try it. It will be deep meditation -- knowing well that the wall is not listening. But that is not the point.

I have heard about a great psychoanalyst who became very old but still continued to practice six, seven, eight hours per day, listening to the patients. He had a young disciple, an apprentice, who became tired after three or four hours -- listening to nonsense, neurotic obsessions, fixations, the same thing again and again. He asked his old master one day, "How do you manage? Because I see you as fresh in the evening as in the morning when you come to the clinic. You are as fresh as when you go -- seven, eight hours of nonsense. You never get tired. I get tired after two, three hours -- and I am a young man!"

The old man laughed and said, "Who listens?"

Freud arranged it very well. He did not even face the patient. He would tell the patient to lie on a couch, and there would be a curtain, and behind the curtain he would sit. And the patient lying on the couch looking at the ceiling, had to talk. It was really very meaningful. One: when a person is Lying down he is more relaxed. He talks of deeper things than when he is sitting. He goes deeper into his unconscious. Talk to a man standing, and he will be very superficial. Sit down, and he goes a little deeper. Let him lie down and then listen to him; he goes very deep.

And then: he was not facing anybody. When you are facing somebody the very presence of the other functions as a repressive force. Then you start saying things which he would like. Then you start saying things in such a way that he is not offended. Then you manage somehow to say things which will be approved by him. Then there is much repression; then the truth never comes out. When the man is not facing you and you are just facing the ceiling, you have nothing to manage. The ceiling will never be offended, you can say anything you like. By and by, one goes deep into associations.

There is no need for the Freudian couch, simply your bedroom will do. And there is no need for anybody to sit there, you can just talk and listen to yourself. Talking and listening to yourself will give you a depth, a great understanding about your own mind.

So talk to the wall, and listen. Be both the talker and the listener. Don't analyze, don't judge, don't say 'this is good and that is bad','that should not be said and this should be said', no. And don't make any refinement, don't polish. Simply blurt out whatsoever comes to the mind -- ugly, absurd, irrelevant. Let the mind have full play and you simply watch. It will be a very great meditation.

The new groom was pushing the praises of married life to his bachelor friend. "Yes, it is wonderful. Breakfast before I go to work is large and delicious. When I go off after that the little woman gives me a big hug and kiss at the door. I return home at night, supper is on the table. After that I sit in the living room reading the paper while the missus cleans away the dishes. Then she changes into something more comfortable and sits down beside me, and talks to me. And she talks, and talks, and talks, until I wish she would drop dead."

Don't give such an opportunity to anybody that he starts thinking, "When are you going to drop dead?" It is your problem. Or, you can make a good arrangement if somebody has the same problem. This is Amida's problem. In this ashram there are so many mad people; you can find somebody else who has the same problem. Then you can make a good arrangement: one hour you talk, one hour you listen to him. No need to be connected with each other, no need to be relevant, and no need to follow any rules of conversation. It is not a conversation. One hour you blurt whatsoever comes to your mind, and of course, then you have to pay -- one hour you have to listen. And it will be valuable for both.

But one thing should be remembered: don't repress it. Anything repressed becomes poisonous. And talking is just innocent; the wall will do. Go to the trees and they will feel very happy; nobody talks to them. They are always waiting. They will feel grateful. Or go to the river or to the rocks, but don't repress. By and by, things will clear up and talking will disappear. It is just the beginning. Then deeper layers of being will be touched. Talk is the most superficial layer of your life, just a very superficial layer. When energy is flowing deep, that layer starts trembling, ripples arise. Allow them. Soon, when the talk is exhausted and you have thrown out all the rubbish that you have been carrying for your whole life, silence will come. And that silence will be completely uncorrupted, virgin. You can force your talking, you can repress it and you can look silent, but your silence will not be real silence. Deep down the tremor will continue; deep down the volcano is getting ready to erupt any moment. You are sitting on top of it.

People look silent but they are not silent. I would like you to become really silent, and the way is a deep catharsis.

I know Amida is feeling great energy. Her energy sources are tapped, and she is getting connected with her very ground of being. So in all ways she will feel too powerful. Talk also is one of the most basic ingredients of a human being. A human being is a human being because he can talk. No other animal has that capacity. And then Amida is a woman, not even a man.

I have heard....

A woman was saying to her husband that the new priest was a great talker. And she said, "I have never known a man to talk so fast. It is almost impossible to understand what he is saying. His words overlap."

The husband said, "I know the reason for it. His father was a politician and his mother was a woman."

Now, the perfect combination. So Amida is a woman; talking is easy. There are many reasons for it.

Have you watched? -- small girls start talking before boys. Boys lag behind. In colleges, schools, universities also, as far as language is concerned, girls are always better than boys. They always get higher marks, they are more articulate.

Something seems to be different between the feminine mind and the male mind: the male mind is a better doer, the female mind is a better talker. Maybe because much energy is taken by doing as far as man is concerned; no energy is taken by doing as far as woman is concerned, so the whole energy pours into one direction.

But there is nothing wrong about it. A good talker has something valuable: he can communicate better. To be articulate is beautiful because communication is more possible. And a good talk is an aesthetic value in itself. But first, let the flood be thrown out. Then things will sort themselves out, then things will settle.

After this flood is gone, Amida will find very small sentences coming into her consciousness, but diamond-like, each sentence a value in itself. But first this flood has to go. If the flood is repressed, then those diamonds will be lost forever. That's why all the great scriptures of the world are written in sutras, aphorisms: because the people who wrote them went through this flood of catharsis. When the catharsis was complete, then diamond-like, small sentences -- simple, aesthetic, beautiful, complete -- started bubbling in the consciousness. It is from that consciousness that the Vedas were born, and the Koran. And it is from that consciousness that the beauty of the language of the Bible arises. Never again has it been surpassed.

Jesus was illiterate, but nobody has ever surpassed that clarity, that penetrating reality of his assertions. Behind it is great meditation. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or the Brahma Sutras of Badraina or the Bhakti Sutras of Narad -- small sentences, the smallest you can conceive, almost telegraphic -- but so much is pressed into them that each sentence has atomic energy. If it explodes, if you lovingly take it into yourself, to your heart. It will explode and you will become luminous through it.

But first the flood has to go. It is a good symbol that the flood has come. Allow it. If you can find some sympathetic ears, good. Otherwise, trees, rocks, but don't repress it.

Baul Mystics

VOL. 2, THE BELOVED

Chapter-6

Now Is Not Part Of Time