ONE DAY, AFTER HE HAD GONE BLIND,
RABBI BUNAM VISITED RABBI FISHEL.
RABBI FISHEL WAS FAMOUS THROUGHOUT THE LAND
FOR HIS MIRACLE CURES.
'ENTRUST YOURSELF TO MY CARE,' SAID HIS HOST, 'I SHALL RESTORE YOUR LIGHT.'
'THAT IS NOT NECESSARY,' ANSWERED BUNAM 'I SEE WHAT I NEED TO SEE.'
SPIRITUALITY is not a question of morality, it is a question of vision. Spirituality is not the practising of virtues -- because if you practise a virtue it is no longer a virtue. A practised virtue is a dead thing, a dead weight. Virtue is virtue only when it is spontaneous; virtue is virtue only when it is natural, unpractised -- when it comes out of your vision, out of your awareness, out of your understanding.
Ordinarily religion is thought of as a practice. It is not. That is one of the most fundamental misunderstandings about religion. You can practise non-violence but you will still remain violent, because your vision has not changed. You still carry the old eyes. A greedy person can practise sharing, but the greed will remain the same. Even the sharing will be corrupted by the greed, because you cannot practise anything against your understanding, beyond your understanding. You cannot force your life into principles unless those principles are of your own experience.
But so-called religious people try to practise virtue -- that's why they are the most unvirtuous people on the earth. They try to practise love and they are the most unloving people on the earth. They have created all sorts of mischief: wars, hatred, anger, enmity, murder. They practise friendship but the friendship has not flowered on the earth. They go on talking about God but they create more and more conflict in the name of God. The Christian is against the Mohammedan, the Mohammedan is against the Hindu, the Hindu is against the Jaina, the Jaina is against the Buddhist -- that's all they have been doing.
There are three hundred religions and they have all created fragments in the human mind; they have not been an integrating force, they have not healed the wounds of the human soul. Because of them humanity is ill, because of them humanity is insane -- and the insanity comes out of one thing. That has to be understood as deeply as possible because you can also go in the wrong direction. The wrong direction has a tremendous appeal, otherwise so many people would not have gone in it. The appeal must be great. The magnetic force of the wrong direction has to be understood, only then can you avoid it. You can try practising anything you like and you can remain opposite to it.
You can try practising anything you like and you can remain opposite to it. You can enforce a sort of stillness upon yourself: you can sit silently, you can learn a yoga posture, you can make the body still, as if it is without movement, you can make the body like a statue. And by repeating a mantra or by repressing the mind continuously for a long time, you can enforce a certain stillness upon your being -- but it will be the silence of the cemetery, it will not be throbbing, alive, kicking. It will be a frozen thing. You can deceive others but you cannot deceive yourself and you cannot deceive God. You have got it without any understanding; you forced it upon yourself; it is a practised silence.
The real silence arises out of the understanding: 'Why am I not silent? Why do I go on creating tensions for myself? Why do I go on getting into miserable patterns? Why do I support my hell?' One starts understanding the 'why' of one's hell -- and by that very understanding, by and by, without any practising on your part, you start dropping those wrong attitudes that create misery. Not that you drop them, they simply start disappearing.
When understanding is there, things start changing around you. You will love but you will no longer be possessive. It is not love that creates trouble. If you ask your so-called saints, they say it is love that creates trouble. That is an absolutely false statement. It is based on a deep misunderstanding of the human love-life. It is not love that creates misery -- love is one of the greatest blessings, a benediction. It is possession that creates misery. Possess your beloved, your friend, your child, and you will be in misery. And when you are in misery those religious people are there waiting by the corner. They jump upon you. They say, 'We told you before. Never love, otherwise you will be in trouble. Drop out of all love situations, escape from the world.' And of course it appeals because you are already seeing it happening to you. It is now your own experience that they are right -- and yet they are not right and it is not your experience. You never analysed the phenomenon that has happened, you never analysed that it is not love that has tricked you into misery, it is possessiveness. Drop possessiveness, not love.
If you drop love, of course the misery will disappear, because by dropping love you will be dropping possessiveness also -- that will be automatically dropped. The misery will disappear but you will never be happy. Go and see your saints. They will be a proof of what I am saying. They will never be happy.
They are not unhappy, that is true, but they are not happy either. So what is the point? If happiness does not arise by dropping unhappiness then some mistake has been committed. Otherwise it should be natural. You say, 'I have lighted the candle and the darkness is still there.' Either you are befooling yourself or you are dreaming, hallucinating, about the candle. Otherwise it is not possible -- the candle is burning bright and the darkness is still there? No, the darkness is certain, absolute proof that the light has not entered yet.
When unhappiness drops, suddenly there is happiness. What is happiness? Absence of unhappiness is happiness. What is health? Absence of disease is health. When you are not unhappy then how can you avoid happiness? When you are not unhappy how can you manage not to be happy? It is impossible. It is not in the nature of things. It is against the arithmetic of life. When a person is not unhappy suddenly all his sources are alive; a dance arises in his being; a joy rises in his being. A laughter bursts forth. He explodes. He becomes a Hasid, a Sufi. He becomes a presence of divine ecstasy. By seeing him you will see God -- a glimpse, a ray of light. By visiting him you will be visiting a shrine, a sacred place, a TEERTHA. Just by being in his presence you will be suffused with a new light, a new being; a new wave will arise around you and you can ride on that tidal wave and go to that other shore.
Whenever there is really a dropping of unhappiness, happiness is left -- nothing else is possible. One is simply happy without any reason, without any why.
But your saints are not happy, your saints are very sad; your saints are not living, your saints are dead. What has happened? What calamity? What curse? A mis-step. They thought that love had to be dropped and then there would be no misery. They dropped love -- but the misery was not happening because of love, the misery was happening because of possessiveness.
Drop possessiveness! In fact, convert the energy which is involved in possessiveness into love-energy. But that cannot be done by enforcing anything -- a clear vision is needed, a clarity.
So the first thing I would like to say to you is: spirituality is not the practising of any virtue, spirituality is the gaining of a new vision. Virtue follows that vision; it comes on its own accord. It is a natural by-product. When you start seeing, things start changing.
In life there are three things -- one. the objective world, the world of things. Everybody is able to see that. We are naturally capable of seeing the objective world. But this is only the beginning of the journey. Many have stopped there and think that they have arrived. Of course they have not arrived so they are miserable.
Beyond the objective is the opening of another world -- the world of the subjective. The objective is the world of things, objects; the objective is the world of science, mathematics, physics, chemistry. The objective is very clear because naturally we are born perfectly able to see the objective.
The subjective has to be explored; nobody is born with a vision of the subjective. The subjective has to be explored; one has to learn what it is; one has to taste it by and by and move into it by and by. The world of music, poetry, art -- the world of any creativity -- is the world of the subjective. The man who starts moving inwards becomes more poetic, more aesthetic. He has a different aroma around him, a different aura.
The scientist lives with things; the poet lives with persons. The scientist is not at all aware of who he is, he is simply aware of what surrounds him. He may be able to know about the moon and about Mars and about the stars far, far away, but he is completely oblivious of his own inwardness. In fact, the more he becomes concerned with faraway things, the more and more he becomes oblivious of himself: He remains almost in a sort of sleep about himself.
The poet, the painter the dancer, the musician, they are closer to home. They live in the subjective -- they know they are persons. And when you know you are a person, suddenly you become capable of looking into other persons. For a poet even a tree is a person, even animals are people; for a scientist even a man or a woman is nothing but an object. A scientist looks at a man as if he is also just an object. And if he is not aware of his own inwardness how can he be aware of the inwardness of the other?
When I use the word 'person' I mean that there is an inside which is not available to outside observation, analysis, dissection. There is a rock, it has no inside; you can break it and you can see everything. If you break a rock, nothing is disturbed, nothing is destroyed. Even if it is in pieces, it is the same rock. But if you break a person, something of tremendous value immediately disappears. Now you are left with a dead body, and the dead body is not the person. The rock broken is still the same rock, but the person is no longer the same person. In fact, the person broken is not a person at all. On the dissection table of a surgeon you are not a person, only when a poet touches you and holds your hand do you become a person.
That's why people hanker for love. The reason for the hankering for love is nothing but this: you would like somebody to see that you are a person, not a thing.
You go to the dentist, he is not worried about you -- he is simply interested in your teeth. Even if I go to the dentist -- I see him...what a miracle! He is not interested in me, he just looks at my teeth. I am there, sitting in his chair, he is completely oblivious of me. A great space is available just in his room but he will not even look at me -- that's not his concern. He is only interested in the teeth, in his own technique. His knowledge of the objective world is his only world.
People hanker for love because only love can make you a person, only love can reveal your inwardness to you, only love can make you feel that you are not just that which is apparent from the outside. You are something more; you are something totally different to what you appear to be. The reflection in the mirror is not your totality; the reflection in the mirror is just the reflection of your surface, not of your depth. It says nothing about your depth.
When you come to a scientist, or a person who is absolutely absorbed with the objective dimension, he looks at you as if you are just the reflection in the mirror. He does not look at you, he looks around you. His approach is not direct, his approach is not intimate -- and you feel something is missing. He is mistreating you because he is not accepting your personality. He is treating you as if you are a thing. He is doing things but he is not touching you at all; you remain almost non-existential to him.
And unless somebody touches you with love, looks at you with love, your own inwardness remains unfulfilled, unrecognised -- that is what the need to be needed is.
The subjective is the dimension, the inward dimension, of poetry, song, dance, music, of art. It is better than the scientific dimension because it is deeper. It is better than the objective dimension because it is closer to home. But it is not yet the dimension of religion, remember. There are many people whose mind is obsessed with the objective -- when they think about God, God also becomes an object. Then God is also outside. Ask a Christian where God is and he will look upwards, somewhere in the sky -- outside. When you ask a person where God is and he looks somewhere else than within himself, then he belongs to the non-religious dimension. People ask, 'What is the proof of God?' Proofs are needed only for a thing. God does not need proof. If I love you, what is the proof? For poetry there is no proof, for chemistry there is. But poetry exists. And a world without chemistry would not be very much worse, but a world without poetry would not be a human world at all.
Poetry brings meaning to life, the unproved brings meaning to life -- the proved at the most makes you comfortable. God is not an object and cannot be proved. God is more like music. It exists, certainly it exists, but there is no way to grab it. You cannot have it in your fist, you cannot lock it into your treasury, there is no way.
Love exists but you cannot possess it. If you try to possess it, you belong to the objective dimension and you are killing love -- that's why possession is destructive. If you possess a woman, if you say, 'She is my wife and I possess her' then she is no longer a person. You have reduced her to be a thing and she will never be able to forgive you. No wife has ever been able to forgive her husband; no husband. has ever been able to forgive his wife -- because both have reduced each other to things. A husband is a thing, a wife is a thing, and when you become a thing you become ugly -- you lose freedom, you lose inwardness, you lose poetry, you lose romance, you lose meaning. You become simply a thing in the world of things. Utility is there -- but who lives for utility? Utility can never be satisfying. You are being used, how can it be satisfying? Whenever you feel you are being used, you feel offended. And you SHOULD feel offended, because it is a crime to use somebody and it is a crime to allow somebody to use you. It is a crime against God.
But there are people who try to use God also. When you go and you pray for something you are trying to use God. You don't know what prayer is, you don't know what love is, you don't know what poetry is, you don't know the subjective realm at all. Your prayer, if it has a motivation in it, a desire in it, is ugly. But we find -- we are very cunning people -- we find ways and means.
Let me tell you an anecdote.
A minister, a priest and a rabbi were discussing how they decided what part of the collection money each retained for personal needs and what part was turned into their respective institutions. 'I draw a line,' said the minister, 'on the floor. All the money I toss in the air. What lands to the right of the line I keep, to the left of the line is the Lord's.'
The priest nodded, saying,' My system is essentially the same, only I use a circle. What lands inside is mine, outside is his.'
The rabbi smiled and said, 'I do the same thing. I toss all the money into the air and whatever God grabs is his.'
We even go on playing tricks with God. In fact, God is also our invention, a very cunning invention. It is also somewhere there -- and you can pray to him, you can ask things from him, you can find security in him, consolation, comfort. It is a security measure, a sort of other-worldly bank balance. But it remains an object.
God is not an object -- that's why Mohammedans, Christians, Jews have all tried not to make any image of God. That is very symbolic and meaningful because when you make an image of God it becomes objective. Let God remain without any image. But it has remained without an image only in theology. Whether you have made an image of God or not, it makes no difference; your mind, if it is capable of moving in the objective dimension, will treat God as an object. Even a Mohammedan turns towards Mecca for his prayers; that becomes an image. Even a Mohammedan goes to Mecca to kiss the stone; That becomes the image. The Black Stone of Mecca is the most kissed stone ever. In fact, it is very dangerous to kiss it now -- it is unhygenic.
But whether you make any image of God or not, if the mind is objective, your idea of God will be objective. When you think of God you start thinking of high heaven, the uppermost boundary of the sky. God is THERE. If you ask a truly religious person where God is, he will close his eyes and go inwards. God is there, inwards. Your own being is divine. Unless God is immanent in you, unless God is immersed in your being, you are carrying an image. Whether you have made an image of wood or of stone does not matter -- you can make an image with thinking, thoughts, ideas. That too is an image -- made of a subtler material, but still an image.
Man remains the same unless he changes his dimension. Somebody is an atheist; he says, 'There is no God because I cannot see him. Show me and I will believe.' And then someday he comes to have an experience, a vision, a dream in which he sees God standing there. Then he starts believing.
In the Gita, Arjuna, Krishna's disciple, goes on asking again and again, 'You go on talking about him but I cannot believe unless I see.'Now, what is he saying? He is saying, 'Let God be objective then I will believe.' And Krishna concedes to his desire. I am not happy with that -- because to concede to this desire means to concede that the objective dimension is capable of seeing God. The story says that Krishna then revealed his reality, his vastness; he revealed God. Arjuna started trembling and shaking. He said, 'Stop! Enough! I have seen!' He saw Krishna expanding and becoming the whole universe; and in Krishna stars were moving, the sun was rising and the moon and planets and the beginning of the world and the end of the world and all life and all death was there. It was too much; he could not bear it. He said, 'Stop!' And then he came to believe.
But this belief does not change the object, this belief does not change the objective dimension. He did not believe because he could not see; now he has seen so he believes -- but the God remains in the objective world, the God remains a thing. I am not happy with Krishna for doing this. It should not be done. It is conceding to a foolish disciple's desire. The disciple needs to be changed from his dimension; he should be made more subjective.
But we remain the same -- we go on changing forms but we remain the same.
I have heard.
The funeral was over. Still sobbing, Goldberg, the new widower, followed his late wife's sister-in-law into the waiting limousine. As the big car passed through the cemetery gates the sister-in-law was horrified by Goldberg's hand which was slowly but passionately creeping up her leg. With her body still wracked with sobs of bereavement, she screamed, 'Goldberg, you monster, you fiend, you animal! My sister is not yet cold in her grave. What is the matter with you!'
In a voice shaking with emotion, Goldberg replied, 'In my grief do I know what I am doing?'
People remain the same in their grief or in their other moods -- they remain the same. they don't change the dimension.
So this is the first thing to understand: you need a shift from the objective to the subjective. Meditate more and more with closed eyes about your emotions, about your thoughts. Look deeper into the inner world, the world that is absolutely private to you. The objective is public; the subjective is private. You cannot invite anybody into your dreams, it is not possible. You cannot say to your friend, 'Tonight come into my dream,' because the dream is absolutely yours. You cannot even invite your beloved who may be sleeping just on the same bed, who may be sleeping just by your side, hand in hand. But you dream your dreams and she dreams her dreams. Dreams are private. The subjective is the private; the objective is the public, the objective is the marketplace. Many people can watch one thing, but many people cannot watch one thought, only one person can -- the person to whom the thought belongs.
Remove your consciousness more and more towards me private. The poet lives a private life; the politician lives a public life. Mahatma Gandhi used to say that he didn't have any private life. That means he must have had a very poor life. A private life is a rich life. The politician's life is there to be watched by everybody: on the TV, in the newspapers, in the street, in the crowd. The politician only has a public face. When he goes home he is nobody. He loses all face.
You have to find your private face. The emphasis should be more on the private than on the public. And you should start learning how to love the private -- because the private is the door to God. The public is the door to science but not to religion, not to God. The public is the door towards arithmetic, calculation, but it is not the door to ecstasy, to love. And enjoy things which are very private: music, poetry, painting. Zen insisted on calligraphy, painting, poetry, gardening -- something that is absolutely private, something that you live from the in towards the out, something that rises as a wave in the innermost core of your being and spreads outwards.
The public life is just the reverse: something rises outside and faces in towards you. In a public life the original, the source, is always outside. Your centre of being is never within yourself, It is always outside. That's why a politician is always afraid of the outside -- because his life depends on the outside. If the people don't vote he will be nobody.
But that doesn't make any difference to a painter or to a poet. Nobody purchased Vincent van Gogh's paintings. During his whole life not a single painting was sold, but that didn't matter; he enjoyed himself. If they sold, good; if they did not sell, good. The real prize was not in their being sold and appreciated, the real prize was in the painter's creating of them. In that very creation he has attained his goal. In the moment of creation he becomes divine. You become God whenever you create.
You have heard it said again and again that God created the world. I tell you one thing more: whenever YOU create something you become a small God in your own right. If God is the creator then to be creative is the only way to reach him. Then you become a participant, then you are no more a spectator.
Van Gogh, appreciated or not, lived a tremendously beautiful life in his inner world -- very colourful. The real prize is not when a painting is sold and critics appreciate it all over the world -- that is just a booby prize. The real prize is when the painter is creating it, when the painter is lost in his painting, when the dancer has dissolved into his dance, when the singer has forgotten who he is and the song throbs. THERE is the real prize, THERE is the attainment.
In the outside world you depend on others. In the public life, in the political life, you depend on others, you are a slave. In the private life you start becoming a master of your own being.
Let me insist and emphasise it because I would like all of my sannyasins to be creative in some way. To me, creativity is of tremendous import. An uncreative person is not a religious person at all. I am not saying that you all have to be van Goghs -- you cannot. I am not saying you all have to be Leonardo da Vincis or Beethovens or Mozarts; I am not saying you all have to become Wagners and Picassos, Rabindranaths -- no, I am not saying that. I am not saying that you have to become a world famous painter or poet or you have to win a Nobel prize -- if you have that idea, again you fall into politics. The Nobel prize comes from the outside; it is a booby prize, it is not a real prize. The real prize comes from inside. And I am not saying that you are capable -- all are not capable of becoming Picassos. And there is no need either, because too many Picassos would make a very monotonous world. It is good that there is only one Picassos and it is good that he has never been repeated, otherwise it would become boring.
But you all can become creators in your own way. It does not matter whether anybody comes to know about it or not, that is absolutely unimportant. You can do something out of love -- then it becomes creative. You can enjoy something while you are doing it -- then it becomes creative.
While I am talking to you Astha is cleaning my bathroom and my room. I enquired of her if she would like to drop this work and come to the talk. She said, 'Osho, cleaning your bathroom is enough for me.' It is a creative act, and she has chosen it out of love. And certainly she is not missing anything. Whether she listens to me or not is not the point. If she loves cleaning the bathroom, if she loves me, it is a prayer. You can be here but you may listen to me or you may not listen to me. She is not here but she has listened to me. She has understood me. Now the work itself becomes worship. Then it is creative.
I would like to remind all of my sannyasins again and again: be creative. In the past the majority of the religious people proved to be uncreative. That was a calamity, a curse. Saints were simply sitting doing nothing. That is not real religion. When real religion explodes into people's lives, suddenly much creativity explodes also.
When Buddha was here a great creativity exploded. You can find proofs in Ajanta, Ellora. When Tantra was an alive religion a great creativity exploded. You can go to Puri, Kanorak, Khajuraho and see. When Zen Masters were alive they created really many new dimensions -- out of small things, but very creative.
If you are uncreative it simply means that you must have practised your religion, you must have forced yourself into a certain pattern, and you have got blocked, frozen in that pattern. A religious person is flowing, streaming, river-like; seeking, exploring, always seeking and exploring the unknown, always dropping the known and going into the unknown, always choosing the unknown for the known, sacrificing the known for the unknown. And always ready. A religious man is a wanderer, a vagabond; into the innermost world he goes on wandering moving from one place to another. He wants to know all the spaces that are involved in his being.
Be more creative. Dance, and don't bother whether somebody likes your dance or not -- that is not the question. If you can get dissolved into it, you are a dancer. Write poetry. There is no need even to show it to anybody. If you enjoy it, write it and burn it. Play on your flute or guitar or sitar. You must see our tabla-player, Bodhi. How meditatively he plays on his tabla! That's his meditation. He is growing: going into it, dissolving, melting.
The subjective is the realm of all art and creativity. These are the two ordinary realms of being.
The third, the really religious, is the transcendental. First is the objective -- the objective is the world of science, second is the subjective -- the subjective is the world of art; and third is the transcendental -- that which goes beyond both; is neither objective or subjective; is neither out nor in. In it both are implied, in it both are involved but yet it is higher than both, bigger than both, beyond both. The subjective is closer to the transcendental than the objective, but remember, just by being subjective, you don't become religious. You have taken a step towards being religious, a very important step, but just by being subjective you don't become religious. You can find poets who are not religious, you can find painters who are not religious...religion is more than art, more than songs.
What is this third? First, you start looking into your thoughts. Drop the public world and move into the private: look into your dreams, your thoughts, your desires, your emotions, your moods and the climates that go on changing inside you, year in, year out. Look into it. This is the subjective.
Then the last and the ultimate jump: by and by, by looking into thoughts, start looking into the looker, the witness, the one who is watching the thoughts.
First move from things to thoughts, then from thoughts to the thinker. Things are the world of science, thought is the world of art and the thinker is the world of religion. Just go on moving inwards. The first circumference around you is of things, the second of thoughts, and the third, the centre, your very being, is nothing but consciousness. It is nothing but a witnessing.
Drop things and go into thoughts; then one day thoughts also have to be dropped and then you are left alone in your purity, then you are left absolutely alone. In that aloneness is God, in that aloneness is liberation, moksha, in that aloneness is nirvana, in that aloneness for the first time you are in the real.
The objective and subjective are divided; there is a duality, a conflict, a struggle, a division. The person who is objective will miss something -- he will miss the subjective. And the person who is subjective will miss something -- he will miss the objective. Both will be incomplete. The scientist and the poet both are incomplete. Only the holy man is complete; only the holy man is whole. And because he is whole I call him holy.
By 'holy' I don't mean that he is virtuous, by 'holy' I mean that he is whole. Nothing is left, everything is involved. His richness is whole: the subjective and the objective both have dissolved into him. But he is not just the total of subjective and objective, he is more. The objective is without, the subjective is within and the religious is beyond. The beyond comprehends both without and within and yet is beyond.
This vision is what I call spirituality: the vision of the beyond.
A few more things. In the world of the objective, action is very important. One has to be active because only action is relevant in the world of things. If you do something, only then can you have more things; if you do something, only then can you change in the world of objectivity.
In the world of subjectivity...inaction. Doing is not important, feeling is. That's why poets become lazy. And painters -- even great painters and great poets and great singers, they have bouts of activity and then again they relapse into laziness. The subjective person is more sleepy, dreamy, lazy; the objective person is active, obsessed with action. The objective person always needs to do something or other, he cannot sit alone, he cannot rest. He can fall asleep -- but once he is awake he has to do something. The subjective person is inactive. It is very difficult for him to move into action. He enjoys the world of fantasy -- and that is available without action. He does not have to go anywhere, he has just to close his eyes and the world of dreams opens.
The religious person is the meeting of the opposites: action in inaction, inaction in action. He does things but he does them in such a way that he never becomes the doer. He remains a vehicle of God, the passage -- what the Chinese call wu-wei, inaction in action. Even if he is doing, he is not doing it. His doing is very playful, there is no tension in it, no anxiety, no obsession about it. And even when he is inactive he is not dull; even when he is sitting, or Lying down and resting, he is full of energy. He is not lethargic, he is radiant with energy. Because both the opposites have come to a meeting and to a higher synthesis in him, he can act as if he is in a non-doing state and he can remain in a non-doing state but still you can feel the energy, you can feel a vibe of tremendous activity around his being. Wherever he moves, he brings life to people. Just by his presence dead people become alive; just by his touch dead people are called back to life.
Like Jesus.... When Lazarus died, Jesus was called. He went to the grave where Lazarus was kept and he called out, 'Lazarus, come out!' And the dead Lazarus came out and said, 'I am here. You called me out of death. I am here.'
A religious person is active -- not because he is doer, a religious person is active because he has infinite energy available. A religious person is active -- not because he has to do something, because he has an obsession to do, not because he cannot relax, but because he is such a pool of energy that he has to overflow; the energy is too much and he cannot contain it.
So while sitting silently.... You can see Buddha sitting silently under the Bodhi tree but you will see energy playing around him, a great aura of energy.
A beautiful story is told about Mahavir -- that wherever he moved, for miles around life would become more alive. And he was an inactive man. He would simply stand or sit under a tree, for hours, for days, but for miles life would start throbbing with a new rhythm. It is said that trees would bloom out of season; trees would start growing faster than ever; dead trees would start producing new fresh leaves. Whether it happened or not is not the point, it maybe just a story.But it is very indicative, it is very symbolic. Myths are not symbolic things, myths are very meaningful symbols. They say something.
What does this myth say? It simply says that Mahavir was such a pool of energy, such an overflowing of energy, such an overflowing of God, that wherever he was, life would move faster. A speed would happen to all the existence around him. He would not be doing anything but things would start happening.
Lao Tzu has said that the greatest religious person never does anything, but millions of things happen through him. He is never a doer but much happens through him. He simply goes on sitting and yet the impact of his being on the world of affairs is tremendous. Nobody may ever come to know about him -- he may be sitting in a cave in the Himalayas so you never know about him -- but still your life will be affected by him because he will be vibrating. He will give a new energy, a new pulse to life; he will impart a new pulsation to life. You may not come to know about him but you may have been benefitted by him.
The opposites become complementaries in a religious being. The day and night meet and dissolve their conflict; the man and woman meet in the religious person and dissolve their conflict. A religious person is ARDHANARISHVAR -- he is half man, half woman. He is both. He is as strong as any man can be and he is as fragile as any woman can be. He is as fragile as a flower and as strong as a sword. He is hard and he is soft and he is both together. He is a miracle, he is a mystery. Because opposites meet he goes beyond logic, his being is paradoxical. He is alive as nobody else is alive and he is dead, more dead, than the dead who are in the graveyards. He is dead in a way and alive in a way -- together, simultaneously; he has known the art of dying and the art of living simultaneously.
In ordinary life with the ordinary mind everything is divided into its opposites, and there is a great attraction for meeting with the opposite: the man seeks the woman, the woman seeks the man -- the yin-yang circle. In a religious man all search has stopped -- the man has found the woman, the woman has found the man. In his innermost core the energy has come to a point where everything has dissolved into oneness, into non-duality, ADVAIT. All opposites become complementaries; all conflicts dissolve and become co-operation. Then you have come home, then there is no need to go anywhere, then there is nothing to be sought, nothing to be desired. This state is the state of God. God is a state, God is not an object. And God is not even a person, because God is neither objective nor subjective. God is transcendental.
If you are in the objective I will say, 'Seek the subjective -- there is the God.' If you are in the subjective, I will say, 'Now go beyond. There is no God in the subjective. God is beyond.' By and by one has to go on eliminating, by and by one has to go on dropping. God is when there is no object and no subject, when there is no thing and no thought, when there is no this world and no that world. When there is no matter and no mind, God is; God is neither matter nor mind. In God both exist. God is a tremendous paradox, absolutely illogical, beyond logic. You cannot make an image of God in wood or in stone and you cannot make an image of God in concepts and ideas. When you dissolve all images -- when you have dissolved all in/out, man/woman, life/death, all dualities -- then that which is left is God.
Now this story.
ONE DAY, AFTER HE HAD GONE BLIND,
RABBI BUNAM VISITED RABBI FISHEL.
RABBI FISHEL WAS FAMOUS THROUGHOUT THE LAND
FOR HIS MIRACLE CURES.
ENTRUST YOURSELF TO MY CARE SAID HIS HOST. 'I SHALL RESTORE YOUR LIGHT.'
THAT IS NOT NECESSARY,' ANSWERED BUNAM, 'I SEE WHAT I NEED TO SEE.'
The eyes that see only the outside are blind. They are not really eyes yet. They are very primitive, rudimentary. The eyes that see withinwards are more real. The Rabbi was right. He said, 'Now there is no need to restore my eyes, because although I cannot see objects now I don't WANT to see them anymore. And the world that I need to see, I can see. It is good that blindness happened to me because now I am no longer disturbed and distracted by the other world of objects.'
It has happened many times. Milton became blind -- and all his great poetry was born only after he became blind. At first he was very much shocked, naturally. He lost his eyes and there was no way to restore them. He thought his whole life was finished. He was a good poet, already famous. And, of course, a poet thinks, 'Without eyes, how can you see the trees and how can you see the moon and how can you see the river and the wild ocean? And without eyes how can you see the colour of life? Of course, your poetry will become very poor. It will lose colour.' But Milton was wrong. He was a religious man and he accepted his blindness. He said, 'Okay. If God wills it that way, then that has to be so.' He accepted it. And by and by he became aware of an infinite new world becoming available: the world of inner thoughts. He became subjective. Now there was no need to see outside so all his energy was available.
Have you seen blind people? On their faces you will always see a certain grace. Even ordinary blind people look v3ry graceful, very silent. They don't have any of the distraction of the outside world.
Scientists say that man lives through the eyes; almost eighty per cent of his life is involved with his eyes. Eighty per cent! Only twenty per cent is distributed to other senses. You live eighty per cent of your life through the eyes. That's why when you see a blind man a great compassion arises in your being. You don't feel that much compassion for a dumb or deaf person, no, but for a blind person great compassion arises. You feel, 'Poor fellow. Eighty per cent of his life is not there.'
Eyes are very important. The whole scientific search depends on the eyes. Have you ever heard of any scientist who was blind? It is impossible. A blind person cannot be in objective research -- it becomes difficult. But there have been many blind musicians, blind singers; in fact, a blind person has tremendous qualities of the ear which a man with eyes cannot have, because eighty per cent of his energy is no longer being wasted by the eyes. That energy shifts to his ears. His ears become very, very receptive and sensitive. He starts seeing through his ears. Hold a blind man's hand and you will be surprised. You will find a very alive touch -- a touch you will not find in people who have eyes. Hold the hand of a blind man and you will feel a warmth flowing towards you, because the blind man cannot see you, he can only touch you. His whole energy moves into his touch.
Ordinarily you touch with your eyes. A beautiful woman passes by -- you look. You have touched her through the eyes. You touched her whole body -- and without offending her and breaking no law. By and by you forget completely what touch is.
Eyes have become monopolies -- they have taken many energies from many sources. For example, the nose. Eyes are very close to the nose. The eyes have taken the whole energy from the nose. People don't smell. They have lost their smell power. Their noses are dead. A blind person smells. His smelling capacity is tremendous. When you come close to him he knows your smell; he recognises you by your smell. He touches you; he knows you by your touch. He hears your sound; he knows you by your sound. His other senses become alive. And he is very graceful, because the eyes create much tension.
When Milton became blind, first he was shocked but-then he accepted -- he was a religious man. He prayed to God and he said, 'Thy will be done.' By and by he was surprised that it was not a curse, it was a blessing. He became aware of infinite colours inside. It was a psychedelic world. Very subtle nuances, very beautiful dreams started opening up for him. And all his great poetry was born when he became blind. He was a good poet but not a great poet, but when he became blind he was no longer a good poet, he became a great poet. Good poetry is just so-so -- luke-warm. Maybe you cannot find any fault in it but that's all. Great poetry has a penetrating energy in it; great poetry is a revolutionary force; it has an impact strong enough to shake the whole world, to change the whole world.
It has happened many times. If, when a certain person has suddenly become blind, he can accept it, that very acceptance gives him a new world. The objective disappears, the subjective opens its door. And the subjective is closer to the transcendental -- that's why all the meditators close their eyes.
Have you observed? All women close their eyes when you make love to them; men never close their eyes. They are foolish. The man wants to see the woman when he is making love to her. He would like to have the light on so he can see. And there are many foolish people who have mirrors in their bedroom. Not only would they like to see the woman, they would like to see all the reflections around. And there are a few who have fixed cameras in their room -- automatically taking pictures -- because if they miss something right now, later on they can see it!
But women are still not that foolish. I don't know about liberation women -- maybe they are doing the same thing because they have to compete with everything, whatsoever it is. They may be making love with open eyes -- but then they will miss something. Men make love in the objective dimension, women make love in the subjective dimension. Women immediately close their eyes because it is so beautiful inside, what is there to see outside? When you are moving in love energy, melting, flowing, and an orgasm is opening inside you, it is there that reality has to be looked at. The man is just foolish, he is just looking at the body; the woman is more understanding, she is looking at the psyche -- a higher standpoint.
But still it is not religious. It is artistic, aesthetic, but still not religious. When you become religious, then the Tantra attitude arises. Then you don't see with open eyes, you don't see with closed eyes you simply see the seer! You are not worried about the experience, you look at the experiencer, you look at the witness. Then love becomes Tantra. Whether it is a man or a woman who is moving into the dimension of Tantra, he or she is not interested in what is happening; rather, he or she is more interested in the witness who is watching it all. Who is this witness? And when the energy is exploding in such a natural, spontaneous realm it is better to watch. Just be a watcher on the h i 11. Forget about you r being a man or a woman, forget about your being in the body, forget that you are a mind and just be a witness -- and then you have become transcendental. Tantra is transcendental.
And this dimension has to evolve in all your ordinary life situations. Whatsoever you do, you can do in three ways: objectively, that is the scientific way, the Western way; or, subjectively, that is the Eastern way, or, the religious way, the transcendental way, in which East and West meet and dissolve. The religious way is neither Eastern nor Western. The West is scientific, the East is poetic; the West thinks in terms of history, the East thinks in terms of myths, PURANAS; the West is more concerned about what reality is, the East is more concerned about the fantasy about the reality, the dream about the reality; the West is more concerned with the conscious mind, the East is more concerned with the unconscious mind. But religion is beyond both. Religion is of the super-conscious mind, the transcendental mind -- it is neither Eastern nor Western.
Just as man and woman meet, so East and West meet. West is more male, East is more female; West is more will, East is more surrender. But religion is both, and beyond.
'THAT IS NOT NECESSARY,' ANSWERED BUNAM, 'I SEE WHAT I NEED TO SEE.'
Certainly a great religious statement -- it's enough, more than enough, if you can see the seer. If you can see the seer. If you can be your consciousness, your awareness, that's enough. All is available. You have become a God, nothing else is needed.
Strive for that state of being. If you are coming from the West, struggle for it; if you are coming from the East, surrender for it. If you are coming from the West, will it; if you are coming from the East, be passive, wait for it.
And if you are my sannyasins, who don't belong to the East or to the West, then drop all duality, be non-dual. Drop all division. Just be individual.!f you belong to me then you belong to the transcendental. That is the whole meaning of being initiated by me. I bring you the transcendental, I bring you the ultimate, I bring you that which cannot be seen on the outside, that which cannot be seen on the inside but you can become that because you are already that.
