Sufism, Vol. 2 Sufis: The People Of The Path Chapter 2: Diamonds Regained, Question 3

The third question:

Question 3

ONE OF THE KEY WORDS TO MY AND OTHERS' EXPERIENCES HERE IS 'ENERGY'. I CAN FEEL IT -- SOMETIMES MORE, SOMETIMES LESS -- AND I ALSO FEEL THAT OPENING MYSELF MORE TO EXPERIENCING IT, IS LETTING IT DO THE JOB OF CHANGE. STILL IT PUZZLES ME AS IT IS A TOTALLY NEW CONCEPT TO ME AND I SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT IT. IS IT AN INNER OR AN OUTER PHENOMENON, OR BOTH? CAN ONE MISUSE IT? PLEASE EXPLAIN.

The question is from Sucheta. She has stumbled upon one thing which is very significant -- energy. That's what we are producing here.

To those who come as spectators, it remains unavailable. Those who come just to see what is happening will not be able to see it. And this is the real happening. But it is invisible. You have to become a participant, only then will you know about it.

There are two ways of knowing a thing. One is that of the spectator. You go to the movie, you sit in your chair and you see whatsoever goes on moving on the screen. You are a spectator. This is one of the problems for the modern mind. The modern mind has become a spectator. Somebody is dancing -- you are watching. People are glued to their chairs before their TV sets for five, six, seven hours. The average in America is five hours. It is as if the TV set is their god and they are worshipping. They are just glued. They cannot get up, they are almost paralysed -- just watching, just looking. Somebody is making love -- people are watching. Somebody is wrestling -- people are watching. Somebody is dancing -- people are watching. Somebody is singing -- people are listening. People have become spectators.

And when you become a spectator, much is lost. Your life becomes very superficial -- because God is not available through being a spectator, God is available only through participation. If you want to know what dance is, dance. Don't be a spectator. Don t go on looking. You don't know what dance is if you only see a dancer. You just know the movements of the dancer, you don't know how it feels from within the dancer -- how it feels to the dancer, what joy, what ecstasy, what is happening in the innermost core of the dancer. Great things are happening. If there is a real dancer, great things are happening.

When Nijinsky used to dance, sometimes he would make leaps which were physically impossible. Scientists could not figure it out. That big a leap was not possible because of gravitation. And another phenomenon was that when he jumped, coming back to the earth he would fall as if he was a weightless feather. So slowly! It had never happened before. It couldn't happen. It should not happen. But it WAS happening. And they were puzzled.

And it did not always happen. If Nijinsky wanted it to happen, it would not happen. The moment he would will it, he would miss. If somebody had come just to photograph him, he would not be able to make that kind of leap. And he would feel very humiliated. It was nothing that he could do. It only used to happen when he used to disappear in his dance. Then by and by he became more aware of it -- that when he was not, when the dancer disappeared in the dance, then it happened. Then suddenly gravitation no longer functioned; it was as if another kind of law started working -- levitation. It was as if he started being pulled upwards.

You cannot know it from the outside. You can see Nijinsky jumping, you can watch -- but you don't know what is happening inside him. Inside him something like a satori was happening. The West was not aware of these phenomena, that s why nobody told him that this was a satori. Had he been to the East -- in a Sufi country, in a Zen country, or a Taoist country -- it would have been immediately recognised. And great possibilities would have opened.

Just the reverse happened in the West. Nijinsky went mad because he became so disoriented. He could not figure out what it was. He became so afraid of it -- as if he was being possessed by some evil spirit or something. That which could have become the door to God became a door to a madhouse. He needed a Master in that moment. He needed one who had realised this inner phenomenon. The Master would have been of great help. But he was not aware that he needed a Master; he was not aware that anything religious was happening. He became disturbed. He became afraid of himself.

How can you see what is happening to Nijinsky? I am here. I am talking to you. You can listen to my words but you can't see from where they are coming. You cannot see my heart.

So one way is the way of the spectator. Another way is the way of the participant. Two kinds of people come here. Spectators come; they miss the whole thing. The whole thing looks like a crazy trip. What are people doing? What is happening to these people? Why so much dancing? Why so much singing? Why so much crying and weeping? What is happening to these people? What kind of meditation is this? Spectators come, and they are puzzled. They cannot figure it out.

Only by being a participant will you know what is happening. And if you are a participant then 'energy' will be the word that will become the most important -- that is what is happening around here.

Sucheta is right. She has stumbled on the right thing. ONE OF THE KEY WORDS TO ME AND TO OTHERS' EXPERIENCES HERE IS 'ENERGY'. I CAN FEEL IT -- SOMETIMES MORE, SOMETIMES LESS -- AND I ALSO FEEL THAT OPENING MYSELF MORE TO EXPERIENCING IT, IS LETTING IT DO THE JOB OF CHANGE.

Perfectly true. You will feel it sometimes more and sometimes less, not because it is sometimes more and sometimes less, but because you are sometimes more sensitive and sometimes less sensitive. The energy is continuously flowing, the river is continuously flowing -- it depends on your sensitivity how much you will be able to feel it in a certain moment. It is not that sometimes the energy is here and sometimes it disappears, it is here twenty-four hours. It is going to be here as long as I am here, or, for those who are sensitive enough, it will be available after I am gone. It depends on you.

So when it is flowing less, then watch -- you must have become a spectator. Then it is flowing less. When it is flowing more, watch. You must be a participant -- then it is flowing more. So keep it as a key. Whenever it is less, just become aware that you must become more of a participant. You must have fallen into the trap of being a spectator.

That's why I insist that while you are meditating, keep your eyes closed, have a blindfold, so that you don't become spectators. Otherwise the tendency is there. It is so ingrained. Your whole culture has prepared you to become spectators. So even if meditation is happening to you, and you are moving into energy, suddenly the idea arises, 'See what is happening to others.' And you miss. If you open your eyes, a great change has happened: you have fallen from being a participant and you have become a spectator. And this is not a small distance, it is as far away as earth and sky. And then suddenly it is no longer flowing. You are no longer here. If you want to be here, the only way to be here is to be a participant.

And if you are a participant, you need not do the job of change. The energy will do it. Let me do it. Allow me. It will happen. All that is needed from your side is not to resist. All that is needed from your side is openness, co-operation -- a loving co-operation, not a fearful defence. And, yes, you need not bother about change. The change happens very easily.

STILL IT PUZZLES ME. It will puzzle you in the beginning. The puzzling phenomenon comes because you are no longer In control, you are no longer the master of it. You cannot manage it, you cannot will it; it is beyond you, it is bigger than you. That's why it puzzles you. We are always puzzled by the bigger because we always want something which we can define, which we can hold in our hands, which we can possess. Anything bigger than you puzzles you -- because the mind feels so tiny. It falls short and cannot figure it out. And once the mind feels 'I cannot figure it out' it starts freaking, it starts getting so frightened that it can start thinking of escaping.

Many people escape from here. Once the energy takes possession of them and things start happening.... And they always wanted them to happen -- this is how human mind functions. They came here in the first place for something to happen. If it doesn't happen, they are angry. If it starts happening, they are frightened. Fear and anger are the same energy. Fear is negative anger and anger is positive fear. The difference is only of positivity and negativity. And this is how people are working. If it doesn't happen, they are angry -- as if I am not doing it to them. They are not co-operating, that is the only thing. But they are angry at me -- as if I am doing it to others and not to them. They go on writing letters to me. That something is happening to somebody else, why is it not happening to them? -- as if I am responsible. It is not happening to you because you are not co-operating.

And it cannot happen to you if you are expecting. Your very expectation is a barrier. And it cannot happen to you if you are competitive, if you are thinking that it is happening to your girlfriend or your boyfriend or somebody and it is not happening to you. If you are competitive, it is not going to happen to you. All competition is out of the ego. Then you are angry.

And if it happens, then you become frightened. Then you become so afraid that you start thinking of where to go now and of how to escape from this place -- because something is happening which is crazy. It is crazy -- crazy in the sense that you don't have any idea of what it is, you don't have any mind to explain it, you don't have any philosophy to make it clear to you.

STILL IT PUZZLES ME, Sucheta says, AS IT IS A TOTALLY NEW CONCEPT TO ME. Right, it is a totally new phenomenon. Don't call it a concept. It is not a concept, it is a reality. It is not an idea. This energy is not an idea. It is the most pregnant force in the world. It is through this force that people are transformed. It is alchemical. It is about this force that alchemists have been talking down the ages. It is this chemistry that transforms the gross into the subtle, that transforms the iron into gold, that changes the lower into higher, that transforms sex into prayer energy, that makes you capable of moving into different planes, higher planes, higher plenitudes. It is not a concept.

But I can understand what she means. she is saying that she has no philosophy to figure it out. But there is no philosophy and I cannot supply it. Nobody has ever been able to supply any philosophy to figure it out. It is so big; philosophies are so small. Philosophies are in the mind of man and this is universal energy. Mind cannot contain it. And you should not try to do that, otherwise the mind will come in and will disturb your receptivity for it.

AND I SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT IT. Forget. Knowing more about it is not going to help; being more into it is going to help. And being more into it is the only way to know more about it. Don't do the reverse.

Ordinarily our mind says, 'First know more about it, then go into it.' That seems to be more clever. But it doesn't work. The mind says, 'First know, then go into it. Without knowing, jumping into it is dangerous, can be dangerous. You may be lost. Or you may not come back again. Who knows? Whether this is good or bad, divine or devil, who knows? So first know everything about it.' But there is no way to know anything about it without going into it. That is the danger, that is the risk, the gamble.

That's why I call sannyasins the gamblers. They are ready to go into the unknown with me without any hitch or hesitation. I cannot give them any guarantee. It is not possible in the very nature of things. A guaranteed truth is a lie. The truth cannot be guaranteed. One has to go into it with a throbbing heart. One has to take the risk. The danger is there. Either you will become enlightened or you will go mad -- that danger is there.

That is why a Master is needed, and a great love for the Master is needed -- so you can trust him. So that when things start going out of your hand, he can take them in his hand. If you don't trust him, then madness is going to happen. So I never suggest to anybody to go into this unknown without a Master.

I know that sometimes it happens that a person can go without a Master, but that should be an exception, it should not be made a rule. We can forget about it. Yes, it happens that once in a while a man escapes danger and reaches to truth without being guided. But that should be thought of as accidental; one should not make an ideal of it. It is far better, far happier, far more joyous and celebrating, to go with somebody who knows the way, who has been on the way again and again.

Sufis say that if you want to ask the way to a certain peak, ask the man who comes down and goes up every day. Ask the postman who goes to the mountain peak to deliver the post -- who comes every day and goes every day. Ask the man who knows the path so perfectly that he can go with a blindfold, he can go in darkness without any light. Ask that man.

But I cannot give you any knowledge about it. There exists none. Experience is the only way to know it. I can give you an invitation; I can tell Sucheta, 'Come along with me. Drop your resistances -- ConsCious and unconscious. Drop your fears. And also drop this mind which wants things to be explained.' There are things which cannot be explained because there are things which are mysterious. And those are the real things. That which can be explained is meaningless; it is trivial, it is mundane. All that is beautiful, all that is true, all that is great, is beyond explanations. It is a mystery. You have to go into it. You have to savour it.

AND I SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT IT. It is good that you want to know more about it but the way to know is to be more into it.

IS IT AN INNER OR AN OUTER PHENOMENON, OR BOTH? It is neither -- because for energy there is no in nor out. In and out are our divisions created by the ego. It is like your house. You say that this is inside my house and this is outside. Do you think that the sky is divided between the inner and the outer because you have made a small wall? The sky is not divided. The sky remains undivided, indivisible. There is no in and no out. It is one sky. The sky that is inside your house is the same sky that is outside your house. And there is no way to cut it into parts.

And so is energy. It is one vitality, it is one God, it is one life. All is one unto it. It is neither lower nor higher, neither inner nor outer, neither material nor spiritual. All divisions are egoistic. It knows no divisions.

IS IT AN INNER OR OUTER PHENOMENON, OR BOTH? CAN ONE MISUSE IT? No, there is no possibility. You cannot misuse it because before you can get it, you have to disappear. You get it only with the condition that you are not -- so who can misuse it? If you are, you never get it. This is a built-in protection. Nobody can misuse it -- because before you can get it, you have to disappear utterly. That is a basic requirement. Nobody can misuse God. It is prohibited by its inner mechanism -- because before you enter the shrine of God you have to disappear.

And once you are not, who is there to use or misuse? Forget the word 'misuse'. You cannot even use it! It starts using you. You become just instrumental -- a passive vehicle, a hollow bamboo. God starts flowing through you. When he starts singing, you become a flute; otherwise you are a hollow bamboo, you remain a hollow bamboo. All songs are his. He uses you. You cannot use, you cannot misuse, because you are no more.

Sufism

VOL. 2, SUFIS: THE PEOPLE OF THE PATH

Chapter-2

Diamonds Regained