meditation energy enhancement course

 

And don't tell anyone about the experience you have within the heart. Why? Why not tell this secret? Because this secret is such that whoever you tell it to will laugh. And it is possible that you are not yet capable of enduring the laughter of others. Whoever you tell this secret to will think you are mad. And it is possible that you are yet unripe, you are very new on the inner journey, so don't let the laughing of others put you in disarray. Don't let it people start calling you mad and you too begin to doubt  --  who knows?

 Man lives according to the opinions of others. You believe what people say. Where else will you find recognition? Right now you don't have the capacity, you don't have the awareness that you can find recognition within yourself. You find respect outside. This is why you are so eager that someone praise you, and you are so afraid that someone might insult you. There are so many people in the world who appear moral. It is not because they are moral. The whole reason is they are afraid of what people will say. They are fearful people. There is fear in their morality. If they are convinced that they will not be caught, that there is no way that they can be caught, then all these people will fall into immorality.

 This is why it ordinarily happens that when people get into power they become immoral. Lord Acton's famous statement is: 'Power corrupts and corrupts absolutely.' Not just partially but totally corrupts. Why? I both agree and disagree with Lord Acton's statement. Agree because the fact can be seen that power corrupts people. Good people  are corrupted as soon as they get into power. Simple direct people who you had never thought would be corrupted if they got in power. Moving into power immediately the hood springs up within them and poison glands emerge. What happens to people who get in power? So it seems that Acton's statement is factual that power corrupts people, because it is seen every day.

 Look at the disciples of Gandhi Baba. What have they been doing in this country for thirty years? They were good people. It cannot be said that they were bad people. As long as they were not in power no one could think that they would prove themselves bad. They neither drank nor ate meat. They wore homespun khadi, they wove with their hands, they spun the spinning wheel. No cigarettes, no betel, no tobacco. They followed vows and fasted. They served the country. They were good people  --  they were servants. Then what happened? How did their faces change when they got in power?

 So Acton's statement seems correct, still I say there is an error in it. And the error is that power does not pervert people, power merely uncovers peoples real face. Power does not pervert them, power only makes them naked. Before being in power the man was hidden in clothes, because before being in power he was afraid you would catch him. How much strength have you got? How much capacity? Arriving in power, strength comes into your hand. Then you can do what you want. Who is going to catch you? You are the one who catches people, who will catch you? The whole power is in your hand. And, 'the buffalo belongs to the one who holds the staff.' The staff of power convinces you that now you can do with open heart what you always wanted to do and could not do because you didn't have the power to do it. You would be caught.

 Power does not corrupt anyone. In my estimation only people who are corrupted are eager to get into power. But they haven't had a chance to  openly play their corruption. Their hands are weak. The heart is filled completely with fire, but they are afraid that if they reveal it now the little respect they have will also be taken. When you reach power who is going to take away your respect? When you are in power whatever you do is right. Whatever the powerful do is right. No law is enforced on the powerful, the powerful are above the law. The law is in force for everyone else. This is why it appears that power corrupts. Power does not corrupt. Power merely uncovers you. Power makes evident your naked picture: how you are, who you are, what you are.

 We want people's praises so we are moral. We are afraid of peoples insults so we move with thought and care to insure we are not insulted. We take every step with caution. This is why Gorakh says when you begin to feel the inner experience and you start to feel unconditional happiness and a waterfall of nectar bursts inside of you, don't tell anyone. Gorakh is saying something worth noting: don't reveal the secret. This is a new shoot emerging, people will jump on it and break it. And people are eager to break it because this shoot has not emerged in them; and "How are you so bold? We are all miserable and you have become happy." Jealousy will be provoked, terrible jealousy will be provoked. Perhaps you will not be able to endure their jealousy, if you are new on this inner journey.

 ... DON'T TALK OF THE SECRET...

 So when nectar begins surging up inside, flowers start blooming, don't tell it to anyone, quietly hold and protect it. Tell it to your master, tell it to your fellow disciples, tell it to those who can understand. But don't declare it to people. Don't start dancing on the streets when dance comes inside of you, otherwise the police will catch you and take you away. Your very family will take you to a psychotherapist, asking for injections, saying something has gone wrong with him. They will request electric shock treatment saying something is wrong with him. Does anyone dance in the street?

 Bertrand Russell went for the first time to an aboriginal society. A full moon night... and when the aboriginals started dancing and sounding the drums and playing cymbals, it arose in Russell's mind: how much civilized man has lost! What do we have in the name of civilization? We don't play drums, we don't play cymbals, nor is there any capacity for dancing left. The feet have forgotten how to dance. Russell wrote: that night under the full moon, seeing naked tribal people dancing beneath the trees a question arose in my heart, what have we gained in the name of progress? And he also wrote that if I return to London and start dancing in Trafalgar Square, I will be immediately apprehended. People will think I have gone mad.

 People think unhappiness is health and think bliss is insanity. Conditions have become so disturbed that only mad people laugh in this world, when do the rest, the sane and sensible people have time to laugh? The hearts of the sane have dried up. The sane  are entangled in counting money. The sane are climbing ladders of ambition. The sane say lets go to Delhi. Where is the leisure to laugh, to sing a couple of songs, to play an ektara, to dance beneath the stars in the shade of a tree, to look at the sun, to talk to the flowers, to hug the trees  --  where is the time? These are the last things when everything is complete  -- when there is money, power, prestige then we will sit under the trees. But this day never comes, it never has come, it never will come. You pass through this life crying and grumbling. As you come, so you go  --  come empty-handed, go empty-handed.

 So if ever the inner nectar takes birth in you and the inner taste starts coming to you... and it doesn't take time to come, just turn in and everything is present. You have turned your back on the river, this is why you are thirsty. Change your direction, turn your back on the world and face yourself. And you will be surprised: why were you thirsty for so long? You will cry because so much was wasted and you will laugh because it is so amazing that you were searching for what you have! You went in search of what you already have and you agonized and were troubled because you didn't find it. And you couldn't find it, because what is inside, you cannot find outside. It can be found where it is.

 But never say it  --  because the feeling to immediately declare arises in that moment, the feeling naturally arises  --  go and tell others, who are straying in the dark. But the straying ones will not agree with you so easily. Their egos have become part of their straying. If you go and tell them, "Don't stray off, you are wandering meaninglessly. Look I have attained. Look at me, look into my eyes." They will laugh. They will say, "One more man has been wasted. You have gone mad."

 The great Western psychologist R. D. Laing has come across a new discovery. Laing tried to demonstrate that in Western insane asylums there are many people who if they had been born sometime in the past in the countries of the East they would have been thought of as 'paramahansas'. The ones people called 'mast fakirs'  --  ecstatic saints, the ones people worshipped. And when a thoughtful psychologist like R. D. Laing says something there is meaning in it. After a lifetime of studying the insane he gave the statement that there are many people locked up who would be Ramakrishnas if they were in the East. And you can be sure that if Ramakrishna was in the West he would have been put into some hospital and considered a hysteria patient. It was just a coincidence that he was born in India and a coincidence that the time was good when he was born. Now if he were born in Calcutta, he would not be in Dakshineswar Temple, he would be in Bade Bazaar hospital. No matter how much he screamed, who would listen? If he screamed that I have become enlightened people would say, "Relax, it happens to all mad people." If he went on saying I am seeing visions of Mother Kali people would say, "Relax, you are hallucinating."

 Even now psychologists say that Ramakrishna had epilepsy, it was hysteria. This going unconscious and falling down is no samadhi or anything. Psychologists say that Jesus too was insane. Only an insane man talks to the sky. Does a sensible person talk to the sky? Jesus bowed down, went to his knees and spoke to the sky. And spoke as if there was someone in the sky. He called to his father : Abba  --  daddy! Has he gone mad? What daddy is in the sky? Psychologists will say it is hallucination. This man has become ill, give him an injection of insulin, or electric shock treatment. Bring him back to his senses, put him back on the path.

 It is good that Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna and Christ have already come and gone. There are problems now. The problems have increased. Gorakh is right, his suggestion is totally correct for a seeker.

 LIVE IN THE HEART, DON'T TALK OF THE SECRET...

 Don't tell anyone what is going on inside. Enjoy it quietly, inwardly. Drown in it. Yes if sometime you meet someone, a pilgrim of the inner, converse with him. This is the meaning of satsang: where four divine madmen are sitting. Telling each other, hearing each other. Tell it where people can understand, keep it hidden from the rest. This secret is not to be told to everyone.

 DON'T TALK OF THE SECRET, SPEAK NECTAR-SOAKED WORDS.

 Never give any message about what has happened inside of you, but in your statements its nectar will bubble up. Don't say anything about it, that, "I have found the source of nectar inside of me, I have met god, I have found my soul." Don't say it. Don't be in a hurry. It should be declared in the last moment, when even if the whole world goes against you it won't make any difference to you. Even if you remain alone no doubts will arise in you. Being alone doubts will start to arise; this happens to a new seeker. This is because we think that where the most people are going is where the truth is. If not then why are so many people going? This is why throughout the world religions try to increase their crowd. The bigger the crowd the more our faith becomes certain that the truth is with us.

 If the Christians say that they have the truth, what is the reason? The reason is that about one third of the world is Christian with them. If the Jainas put forth a claim, what claim can they make? At the most there are three million Jainas. Christians are one billion. Three million Jainas! Twenty five hundred years have passed since Mahavira. If he had convinced only thirty couples then by now they would have three million children. Children increase this fast  --  and in India! Thirty couples are sufficient, because if twelve each are born to each couple, then again to each of these twelve, twelve are born then in twenty five hundred years the number will be much more than three million: you can figure it out. Three million people? It is clear that they cannot have the truth. Otherwise why were so few people convinced?

 This world lives following the crowd. A man was telling Bernard Shaw, a Christian was telling Bernard Shaw, that so many people believe so it must be true. Bernard Shaw said, excuse me, this many people believe it, so it cannot be true. Truth happens only infrequently. It manifests only in the life of the few, everyone else lives in lies, because living in lies there are great consolations, in lies there is great comfort. Lies are the way to pull over the blankets and go to sleep. Untruth is sleep. Most people are asleep. Truth is found by the awake.

 Keep quiet until such a state arises within you, until such firmness happens that even if the entire world says you are mad, that even then doubt does not arise within. Until then go on ripening. Until then let maturity arise. Until then let firmness arise. Until then let roots grasp  --  deeper and deeper into your consciousness. Let the tree of this knowledge spread. Yes, one day when the tree has become so strong that it no longer needs support ropes, then the declaration will happen by itself, then there is no need to do anything.

 But now you are worried about every small thing. Think, if you told someone that meditation is happening to you and he said, "Are you in your senses? Meditation does not exist. These are all illusions of the mind." And you will start doubting. At night you will become worried, does meditation exist or not? When you sit down to meditate this doubt will hang around you, does it even exist or not? Are you just wasting your time? And if you meet many people who say it, it will become very difficult.

 Your mind is still swayed very much from the outside, so keep quiet. But in your voice nectar will start flowing. Don't talk about nectar, but a sweetness will come into your voice. In your voice the taste will begin to flow. Don't say directly what you have found, but in your living, in your every movement the difference will start to show, transformation will begin. You will speak and your speech there will have a sweetness that was never there before. In your speech there will be a song, a rhythm that was never there. This rhythm will bring those people near you who are in search of rhythm. This rhythm will start to attract people. They will start to ask you, what has happened to you? When someone comes very close to you and enquires about liberation then you can tell him, otherwise keep the secret hidden.

 LIVE IN THE HEART, DON'T TALK OF THE SECRET, SPEAK NECTAR-SOAKED WORDS.

 WHEN OTHERS BECOMES FIRE, O AVADHU...

 And if the person facing you gets fired up, flies into a rage, goes wild in anger, goes crazy YOU BECOME WATER. Then completely melt. When someone in front of you is ignited with anger then melt, then rain on him like water. Let this be your style of life. Let this be your individuality. Let this be your expression. Through it those who are searching will slowly slowly begin to know. They will get a clue. It does not need to be declared, does not need to be proclaimed from the house tops. In this way slowly slowly your fragrance will reach to the nostrils of the eager, of the seekers. The veena that is playing within you will slowly slowly transform your individuality. And from the sound of your strings the veena inside those who search, those who are thirsty, will also start echoing. People will come, they will start coming from far away. Who here does not want to search for the eternal? Who here is not seeking bliss? People are searching in wrong directions, but people are seeking bliss. And whenever they meet an individual who is blissful, their influence is unavoidable.

 Rahim has said:

 Both appear as one, as long as neither speaks

 only in the spring, are crow and cuckoo unveiled.

 The crow and the cuckoo look similar as long as they don't speak. But when spring comes the difference is made clear. When spring comes the difference is heard. Both crow and cuckoo are black. On the surface no difference is apparent.

 When you speak, when you act, when you take someone's hand in your hand, when you embrace someone, then the difference will be known.

 only in the spring, are crow and cuckoo unveiled.

 Your love, your sweetness, your grace will open in the spring, at that time the difference will be known.

 WHEN OTHERS BECOME FIRE, O AVADHU, YOU BECOME WATER

 And understand this, it is a very surprising thing, but it must be understood.

 A lady came to meet me. A lady from a very rich family, well educated. She told me, "I have come to learn meditation. But before I learn meditation, I have to ask something. If I learn meditation will it create any difficulty in my marriage relationship, in my family life?"

 Before I could say anything she herself said, "I know... why should difficulty arise? Meditation is a good thing. Why should problems come from meditation? But I am asking because my husband told me to ask this before learning meditation."

 I told that woman, "Then it is better that you don't learn meditation, problems will come."

 And the amazing thing is that if you learn something bad then no great problem arises. For example if the wife or husband starts to drink alcohol, then only a little difficulty arises. If he starts to gamble only a little difficulty arises. And the truth is, perhaps no problem at all will arise. And it can also happen that where there had previously been a problem, that problem also goes away, becomes easier.

 You will be a little shocked, because you are not aware of the deeper secrets of the mind. Wives enjoy greatly correcting their husbands. If the husband is completely right and proper, the wife has nothing left to enjoy. If the husband drinks wine, if he smokes cigarettes, then the wife becomes dominant over him. The wife becomes holy. So far Indian women haven't managed the courage to drink wine and smoke cigarettes. So she cannot do these things herself, she doesn't have the courage. The weight of centuries has broken her courage. Even in imagination she doesn't think that she too can drink wine and smoke cigarettes, it is not possible. But she gets one consolation, she gets the consolation of insulting her husband. And it makes it easier for her to take possession of the husband. When the husband comes home he comes home afraid: because he smokes cigarettes. If the husband should completely stop smoking cigarettes and drinking wine then the mastery of the wife who has been the master for twenty years will fall. The enjoyment she had will be lost. People are not so disturbed by evil, because the man who does evil becomes humbled and becomes a reason for others to feed their egos.

 We all want that other people are more humbled than we are, are inferior to us. This is our inner desire. There are two methods: one is that we become superior, then they become inferior. And the other is that they become humbled and we remain just as we are, but we become superior. Ordinarily your so-called religious people renounce and do ascetics, take vows and fast only because there is no more convenient way to feed the ego than this. By renouncing the small things they ascend the lion's thrown  --  they don't smoke cigarettes, they don't chew betel, they don't chew tobacco, they don't drink  water at night, they drink filtered water, they don't eat this or don't eat that. On the basis of all these small things their ego gets great status. Who will give up ego and worship that are received so cheaply? What is man  not willing to do for ego? This is a very cheap renunciation, what's in it? If someone in the family in the family is doing something degrading then the others find it easy to dominate him.

 I said to that woman, "I cannot say that no problem will come from doing meditation. Great difficulty will come from doing meditation. All the politics at home will change. There will be a great shuffling of politics at home. If you meditate then difficulties will start. You will become peaceful, the husband will fly into a rage and you will remain calm. Can you imagine what a blow that will be to your husband's ego? So come deliberately. You go, then come deliberately. There will be differences." And every day I experience that there are differences.

 One woman has meditated some three years, difficulties have begun, because now she has no interest in sex. And her husband is becoming absolutely insane. He is going completely mad.

 I told that woman, "At least you can fake it, what is the use in having a fight every day? Fulfill the husband's demands  --  do it just as acting."  She said okay. A meditative person can do acting very easily. Only a meditator can act! The inside is far away, play-act on the outside. But when the wife was playing on the outside, still the husband had difficulty. The husband came to me. He said, "You have given her a new instruction. Now I feel even more like an idiot. She is just playing. And when someone else is just acting with me I can see clearly that she is not interested. She is only showing interest, so I feel more repentant. You have ruined my whole life."

 So I told that woman, "You go and ask again before coming. Differences will come. Meditation will increase your heights, it will increase your depths. The whole arrangement of your house will certainly change. What yesterday was higher than you will start to fall below you. What yesterday was deeper than you will start to feel shallow. All their egos will feel hurt. They will take revenge."

 It has been five years, that woman never returned.

 Take note, as soon as a little inner flame awakens in your life, differences will come. If you don't say, still differences will arise. If you hide the distinctions, still differences will come. You cannot go on behaving like you were until yesterday. Spring has come, now the difference between the crow and the cuckoo has become clear. The crow will be angry. The crow will be very angry with the cuckoo. Naturally, the cuckoo is cooing and everyone one is in ecstasy. The poor crow also tries very hard to get someone to clap their hands. And people do clap their hands  --  to shoo him off, go, get away, and don't come back here again.

 A crow was flying. A cuckoo asked him, "Uncle, where are you going?"

 He said, "I am going to the East. Now I'm not going to live here. The people here are bad. No one here welcomes my song, my singing. I am going to the East. I have heard that people in the East are very good."

 The cuckoo said, "I have to tell you one thing, whether you go to the East or to the West, wherever you go as long as your throat remains as it is, you will experience difficulty everywhere. Transform your throat. Nothing will happen by going East and West. The people in the East are the same."

 A Sufi story. A man was sitting at the gate of a town, an old man. A rider stopped, a horse rider and asked him, "what are the people of this town like?"

 The old man asked, "Why do you ask this?"

 The rider said, "The people of the town I have come from are very indecent. I was upset and disturbed by them. I had to leave that town. Now I want to become a resident of some new town. So I am asking you how the people of this town are."

 The old man said, "Brother, you had better move on. The people of this town are even more vile, more wicked, more indecent. Here you will get into trouble, go look somewhere else."

 The rider moved on. Just behind him a bullock cart came to a halt and a man looked around and said, "Grandfather, how are the people of this village? I am searching for a new residence."

 The old man asked again, "How were the people of the village you have left?"

 Tears came to the eyes of that man. He said, "I didn't want to leave, helplessly I had to leave. The people of that village were very loving. Now wherever I live the memory of those people will torment me. I was helpless, I was in economic difficulty. I had to leave it so that I can earn something, I need to try my luck somewhere else. But I have just one ambition that whenever my luck improves, I will  return there. I will reside in that village, in the end I want to die in that village. If I cannot live there then at least I want to die there."

 That old man said, "You are welcome. You will find the people of this village even more loving than the people of that village."

 A man was sitting there listening to all this. First he heard what the horse rider said and the old man's answer. Then he heard what this man on the bullock cart said and the old man's answer. The man said, "You have really surprised me. You said to one man that this village is very vile and wicked, just move on. And to the other you said this village has very loving people, you have no need to go further, you are welcome! The old man explained, "People are just the way you are. Everywhere men are the same. The real thing is your question."

PYTHAGORAS AND VEGETARIANISM

KARMA IS THE REVENGE OF THE COWS!!

Enlightenment is Your Birthright

PYTHAGORAS' CONTRIBUTION TO WESTERN PHILOSOPHY IS IMMENSE. It is incalculable. For the first time he introduced vegetarianism to the West. The idea of vegetarianism is of immense value; it is based on great reverence for life.

The modern mind can understand it far better now we know that all forms of life are interrelated, interdependent. Man is not an island: man exists in an infinite web of millions of forms of life and existence. We exist in a chain, we are not separate. And to destroy other animals is not only ugly, unaesthetic, inhuman—it is also unscientific. We are destroying our own foundation.

Life exists as one organic unity. Man can exist only as part of this orchestra. Just think of man without birds and without animals and without fish—that life will be very very boring; it will lose all complexity, variety, richness, colour. The forests will be utterly empty, the cuckoo will not call, and the birds will not fly, and the water will look very sad without the fish.

Life in its infinite forms exists as one organic unity. We are part of it: the part should feel reverence for the whole. That is the idea of vegetarianism. It simply means: don't destroy life. It simply means: life is God—avoid destroying it, otherwise you will be destroying the very ecology.

And it has something very scientific behind it. It was not an accident that all the religions that were born in India are basically vegetarian, and all the religions that were born outside India are non-vegetarian. But the highest peaks of religious consciousness were known in India and nowhere else.

Vegetarianism functioned as a purification. When you eat animals you are more under the law of necessity. You are heavy, you gravitate more towards the earth. When you are a vegetarian you are light and you are more under the law of grace, under the law of power, and you start gravitating towards the sky.

Your food is not just food: it is you. What you eat, you become. If you eat something which is fundamentally based on murder, on violence, you cannot rise above the law of necessity. You will remain more or less an animal. The human is born when you start moving above the animals, when you start doing something to yourself which no animal can do.

Vegetarianism is a conscious effort, a deliberate effort, to get out of the heaviness that keeps you tethered to the earth so that you can fly—so that the flight from the alone to the alone becomes possible.

The lighter the food, the deeper goes the meditation. The grosser the food, then meditation becomes more and more difficult. I am not saying that meditation is impossible for a non-vegetarian—it is not impossible, but it is unnecessarily difficult.

It is like a man who is going to climb a mountain, and he goes on carrying many rocks. It is possible that even when you are carrying rocks you may reach to the mountain peak, but it creates unnecessary trouble. You could have thrown those rocks, you could have unburdened yourself, and the climb would have been easier, far more pleasant.

The intelligent person will not carry rocks when he is going to the mountain, will not carry anything unnecessary. And the higher he moves, the lighter and lighter he will become. Even if he is carrying something, he will drop it.

When Edmund Hillary and Tenzing reached Everest for the first time, they had to drop everything on the way—because the higher they moved, the more difficult it was to carry anything. Even very essential things were dropped. Just to carry yourself is more than enough.

Vegetarianism is of immense help. It changes your chemistry. When you eat and live on animals.... The first thing: whenever an animal is killed the animal is angry, afraid— naturally. When you kill an animal... just think of yourself being killed. What will be the state of your consciousness? What will be your psychology? All kinds of poisons will be released in your body, because when you are angry a certain kind of poison is released into your blood. When you are afraid, again a certain other kind of poison is released into your blood. And when you are being killed, that is the utmost in fear, anger. All the glands in your body release all their poison.

And man goes on living on that poisoned meat. If it keeps you angry, violent, aggressive, it is not strange; it is natural. Whenever you live on killing, you don't have any respect for life; you are inimical to life. And the person who is inimical to life cannot move into prayer—because prayer means reverence for life.

And one who is inimical to God's creatures cannot be very friendly towards God either. If you destroy Picasso's paintings, you cannot be very respectful towards Picasso — it is impossible. All the creatures belong to God. God lives in them, God breathes in them, they are his manifestation, just as you are. They are brothers and sisters.

When you see an animal if the idea of brotherhood does not arise in you, you don't know what prayer is, you will never know what prayer is. And the very idea that just for food, just for taste, you can destroy life, is so ugly. It is impossible to believe that man goes on doing it.

Pythagoras was the first to introduce vegetarianism to the West. It is of profound depth for man to learn how to live in friendship with nature, in friendship with creatures. That becomes the foundation. And only on that foundation can you base your prayer, your meditativeness. You can watch it in yourself: when you eat meat, meditation will be found to be more and more difficult.

Buddha was born in a non-vegetarian family. He was a kshatriya — — belonged to the warrior race — but the experience of meditation slowly slowly transformed him into a vegetarian. It was his inner understanding: whenever he ate meat, meditation was more difficult; whenever he avoided meat, meditation was easier. It was just a simple observation.

You will be surprised to know that the greatest vegetarians in the world have been Jainas — but all their twenty-four Masters were born into families of non-vegetarians. They were all warriors; they were brought up as fighters. All the twenty-four Masters of the Jainas were kshatriyas.

What happened? Why did these people who were brought up, conditioned from their very beginning to eat meat, create one day the greatest movement in the world for vegetarianism? Just because of their experiments with meditation.

It is an unavoidable fact that if you want to meditate, if you want to become thoughtless, if you want to become light—so light that the earth cannot pull you downwards, so light that you start levitating, so light that the sky becomes available to you—then you have to move from non-vegetarian conditioning to the freedom of vegetarianism.

Vegetarianism has nothing to do with religion: it is something basically scientific. It has nothing to do with morality, but it has much to do with aesthetics. It is unbelievable that a man of sensitivity, awareness, understanding, love, can eat meat. And if he can eat meat then something is missing—he is still unconscious somewhere of what he is doing, unconscious of the implications of his acts.

But Pythagoras was not heard, not believed—on the contrary, he was ridiculed, persecuted. And he had brought one of the greatest treasures from the East to the West. He had brought a great experiment—if he had been heard, the West would have been a totally different world.

The problem that has arisen today, that we have destroyed nature, would never have arisen. If Pythagoras had become the foundation for the Western consciousness, there would not have been these great World Wars. He would have changed the whole course of history. He tried hard, he did whatsoever he could—it is not his fault. But people are blind, people are deaf; they can't hear a thing, they can't understand a thing. And they are not ready to change their habits.

People live in their habits, mechanically they live. And he had brought a message of becoming aware. Great meditative energy would have been released in the West. It would have become impossible to produce Adolf Hitlers and Mussolinis and Stalins. It would have been a totally different world. But still the same old habit persists.

We cannot change human consciousness unless we start by changing the human body. When you eat meat you are absorbing the animal in you — and the animal has to be transcended. Avoid! If you really want to go higher and higher, if you really want to go to the sunlit peaks of your consciousness, if you really want to know God, then you will have to change in every possible way.

You will have to look all around your life, you will have to observe each small habit in detail—because sometimes a very small thing can change your whole life. Sometimes it may be a very simple thing, and it can change your life so totally that it looks almost unbelievable.

Try vegetarianism and you will be surprised: meditation becomes far easier. Love becomes more subtle, loses its grossness—becomes more sensitive but less sensuous, becomes more prayerful and less sexual. And your body also starts taking on a different vibe. You become more graceful, softer, more feminine, less aggressive, more receptive.

Vegetarianism is an alchemical change in you. It creates the space in which the baser metal can be transformed into gold.

THE SECOND THING that Pythagoras also introduced into Western consciousness was the idea of reincarnation. That too is somehow related with vegetarianism. You will be surprised again: all the vegetarian religions believe in reincarnation, and all the non-vegetarian religions believe only in one life. This can't be just a coincidence.

In India, Brahminism, Jainism, Buddhism are the three great religions. They differ in every possible way—their ideologies are so different that you cannot find more different ideologies anywhere. Hindus believe in God, they believe in the soul. Jainas don't believe in God—a tremendously fundamental thing—a religion without God. Buddhists don't even believe in the soul—no God, no soul. You cannot imagine a religion without God and without the soul. Such are their differences.

But about one thing they are all agreed, and that one thing is the idea of reincarnation, rebirth. Even Buddha, who does not believe in the soul, agrees with it. It looks very absurd— how can there be rebirth if there is no soul? He does not believe in a soul but he believes in a continuum. He says: Just as you light a candle in the evening, in the morning when you are blowing it out can you say it is the same flame that you had started in the evening? It is not the same— and yet somehow it is connected. The flame has been changing the whole night, the flame was disappearing the whole night —it was disappearing into smoke and a new flame was replacing it each moment. In fact the movement was so quick, that's why you couldn't see the gaps. There has been a continuum—a constant change, but very quick and fast—one flame being replaced by another, the whole night.

So when in the morning you are putting the candle out, it is not the same flame that you had started—although it looks almost the same. The first flame and the last are connected— they are part of one chain, one process—but you cannot say that there has been one flame, one soul.

That is the Buddhist idea of reincarnation: the continuity continues but individuals disappear—there is no individual soul. But still Buddha believed in reincarnation. Jainas believe in reincarnation, Brahmins believe in reincarnation.

But Jews, Christians and Mohammedans don't believe. Those are the three great religions which were born outside India. How did it happen that all three Indian religions stumbled upon the fact of reincarnation?—although they don't agree in any other matter. Why do they agree about one thing? They could not disagree. From where did this experience come to them?

And you will be surprised—the answer is vegetarianism.

When a person is utterly vegetarian he can easily remember his past lives. His clarity is such that he can look into his past lives. He is not gross, his energy is not blocked, his energy moves easily. His river of consciousness can penetrate to the ancientmost times; he can go backwards as much as he wants.

The consciousness of a non-vegetarian is blocked—in many ways. He has been accumulating gross matter in himself. That gross matter functions as a barrier. That's why all the three religions that were born outside India, and have remained non-vegetarian, could not come to the idea of reincarnation. They could not experience it.

Pythagoras lived in India, lived the life of a vegetarian, meditated deeply, became aware of the past lives, could see himself moving backwards. He could understand what Buddha means when he says, "Once I was an elephant, once I was a fish, once I was a tree."

The idea of evolution has been here in the East for ever— and in a far more subtle way than it has been given to Western science by Darwin. Darwin's idea is very raw: he says monkeys have become man— although Darwinians have not yet been able to prove it, because they are still searching for the link between the monkey and the man. And the problem arises: why did only a few monkeys become men? What happened to other monkeys? And monkeys are basically imitators — if a few monkeys had become men then all the monkeys would have imitated. What happened to the other monkeys? Great imitators they are—why only a few men?

And the monkeys are still there! Thousands and thousands of years have passed and monkeys are still monkeys. And you don't come across a monkey suddenly becoming a man...one fine morning he wakes up and he is a man. Nobody has ever seen this miracle happen.

The question is: where are the links between monkey and man?—and the difference is great, it is not small.

Just the other day somebody asked, "John Lilly has said that man is not the only being on the earth who has consciousness; there are other beings too who have more consciousness than man." The questioner has asked, "Is it true? Is John Lilly right?"

But those other animals have not discovered man yet—it is John Lilly who discovers those other animals. It is man who goes on discovering. Certainly the discoverer has more consciousness than the discovered. Even if we find some day that some animal has a great, evolved brain, we are the discoverers. That great brain has not discovered us just.

There are animals who are very evolved, but nobody is as evolved as man. And the difference is big! John Lilly has been working on dolphins, and he thinks that dolphins have a far better evolved consciousness. If you just meet John Lilly some time, tell him that dolphins have not discovered him— he has discovered dolphins. And the discoverer has more consciousness, obviously.

Dolphins are not saying anything about themselves—it is a man who is saying something about dolphins. They cannot even prove something about themselves. Dolphins are beautiful people, and Lilly is on the right track, but dolphins don't have a higher consciousness than man. They have not produced Buddhas, Patanjalis, Pythagorases—not even a John Lilly.

The Western concept of evolution, the Darwinian concept of evolution, is very gross. The Eastern idea of evolution is very subtle. It is not a question of the body of a monkey becoming the body of man—it has never happened; of the body of a fish becoming the body of man—it has never happened. But the inside of the fish goes on growing; it goes on changing from one body to another.

The growth, the evolution, has not happened from body to body: the growth has been happening in consciousness. When a monkey attains to a certain consciousness, the next birth will be that of man not of a monkey. He will die as a monkey and will be born as a man. The evolution is not going to happen in the body of the monkey itself. That body has been used by the soul—or whatever you call it, the continuum— the body of the monkey has been used, now the soul is ready to take a better body, a body where more possibilities of growth will become available.

The soul moves from one animal to another animal. The bodies are not evolving, but souls are evolving. The candles are not evolving, but the flames go on jumping from one candle to another. The flame goes on rising higher and higher. The evolution is of consciousness, not of the material, physiological body. That is where Darwin missed the whole point.

But in the East for at least ten thousand years we have been aware of it. The awareness came through meditation and the awareness was based in vegetarianism—because people started remembering their past lives.

It was a basic technique with both Buddha and Mahavira: whenever a disciple was to be initiated, the first thing that both Buddha and Mahavira required was that he had to go into his past lives. Great methods were developed so that one could move into past lives.

And once you start moving into past lives, this life will be utterly transformed. Why? Because once you see that all the stupid things that you are doing now, or wanting to do, you have been doing for many many lives... you have done those same things many times, and each time nothing was attained.

For example, if you are mad after money and then you remember that in the past life also you were mad after money, and you had succeeded, and you had become a rich man, a very rich man, and then you died... and all that richness and all that wealth was of no use. It was taken away by death, and you died as empty as ever, as poor as ever. And you remember even before that: you were a king and you had a great kingdom. And still you were frustrated, and still you lived in misery, and you died in misery. And again you are doing the same and hankering for more money? It will become impossible. The longing will simply fall flat on the ground. How can you go on repeating the same stupid thing again and again if you can remember? You can go on repeating the same stupidity again and again if you cannot remember.

The idea of reincarnation is not a philosophical idea: it is an experience, it is utterly scientific. People have remembered their lives.

When you have grown a little deeper into meditation... we are going to do all those techniques here too. But those techniques will require that you be absolutely vegetarian, otherwise you will not be able to go beyond this life. Your mind cannot move—it has to be so light, featherlight, that it can simply pass from one existence into another. And the lighter it is, the deeper it goes.

It can not only remember that you were a man in the past life—slowly slowly, you will remember that you have been animals. And, sometimes, when the depth grows, you will remember that you have been trees, rocks. You have lived for millennia in many forms. And if you remember that once you were a fish, it will become difficult for you to eat fish.

Vegetarianism leads you into remembering your past lives. And knowing your past lives, you become more and more a vegetarian—because seeing that all are brothers and sisters, the whole existence, you cannot kill animals. It becomes simply impossible! Not that you have to prevent yourself; it simply becomes impossible.

Pythagoras was a real adventurer. Alexander the Great also came to India, he also took away many things from India, but they were useless things—diamonds and emeralds and gold. That's what Alexander the Great took away from India—useless things. Pythagoras was a real seeker. He gathered real diamonds, real emeralds: diamonds of consciousness, emeralds of consciousness. And these were two tremendously significant, tremendously pregnant approaches—that of vegetarianism and the idea of reincarnation.

Once it happened: Pythagoras saw somebody hitting a dog. He said, "Do not hit him!" to the man who was beating the dog. "It is the soul of a friend of mine. I recognized it when I heard it cry out."

Now this looks utterly ridiculous to a Western mind, to the Western scientific attitude. Even in those old days, people must have laughed: "What nonsense he is talking about! — 'Don't beat the dog because I have recognized a friend.'" He was simply trying to teach the idea of reincarnation in every way possible.

And the third thing: he was, again, the first to introduce the concept that life is a wheel—a wheel of birth and death. The wheel goes on moving and we go on clinging to the wheel. And the wheel is repetitive; again and again it will move on the same track. Nothing new will ever happen. Birth will come, you will become young, you will be full of sex and great desires, and then you will be spent and you will be old, diseased, ill, sick, frustrated, tired. And then death... and again birth... and so on and so forth.

Each birth brings a death, each death brings a birth. It is a vicious circle, and the wheel goes on moving. In India the word for the world is samsara. Samsara means 'the wheel'. Youth or childhood or old age are just spokes of the wheel, and we go on clinging to the wheel and the wheel goes on moving — as everything else moves in the world. The earth moves around the sun, and the sun also moves around some unknown sun. And the moon moves around the earth, and earth and moon both move around the sun, and the sun around some other sun, and so on and so forth. And all the stars are moving.... And everything is moving in a circle! Seasons move in a circle.

Life is a wheel and the wheel is repetitive. You will never reach anywhere if you go on clinging to the wheel. In the East it has been a known fact that we have to jump out of the wheel — only then are we free. To be free from this wheel of birth and death is to have freedom. Then you simply are. Then you are not moving.Then there is no past and no future but only the present. Then now is the only time and here the only space.

That is the state of nirvana, moksha—freedom. That is the real kingdom of God. One simply is... all turmoil gone, all storms finished, and there is absolute silence. In that silence there is a song, in that silence there is music—unheard music, unstruck music. In that silence is joy, in that silence is bliss. And that bliss is eternal, it never changes.

All change is if you are clinging to the wheel. If you drop out of the wheel, all change disappears. Then you are here and always here.

That state is the real search of all trueseekers: how to get out of this wheel of birth and death, how to enter into life eternal where no birth ever happens and no death either, where nothing begins and nothing ends, where all simply is—how to enter into this God. Just the other day, I was saying God means 'that which is'... how to enter into that which is? These are the sutras by which to enter into that which is.

THOMAS BLAIRS REPORT JULY 9TH 2010

I have been to see Satchi & Devi almost once a year since 2005, and I have to say, that I have never been let down. Every time they greet me at the airport I am received in an atmosphere of great warmth, positivity and generosity, into which I soon relax and know that it’s safe to be me with all my “luggage”. In June 2010 I recently went on a 6 week course they were holding in India.

In the weeks I spent with them it was clear that the blockages I was removing with their help, were increasing the amount of energy flowing through me during meditation. I have never been one to naturally take to meditating, but with these new experiences of Samadhi (sam – with, adhi – light), it was certainly making it possible for me to sit for much longer periods.

I must concede, that on more than one occasion I started to object and complain about what we were doing, and the methods employed to transmute the blockages in my being. Satchi & Devi would patiently wait for me to see that the person complaining was not the real me, it was not the soul infused personality that I really am, but rather the voice of the blockages that did not want to go. There are different types of blockages, and of course, the easy ones are the first to go, but I was now experiencing some really tough ones. They can certainly be very cunning these blockages, and its thanks to the experience and energy of Satchi & Devi that I was able to continue on my way to overcome some really strong blockages.

My experiences of Samadhi: The first time I experienced anything other than a calm mind in meditation was actually the very first course I attended with Satchi & Devi in Spain. The experience of energy surging through my body was first felt in my 1st and 2nd chakras. It was like having champagne bubbling away in my lower abdomen. Before I talk about my experience here in India, I think it would be useful to describe briefly and partly a technique used to commence the flow of energy and so the entry into Samadhi. It’s to do with using the mind to visualise chakras above the head and below the base chakra to infinity. For me, the concept of infinity and trying to imagine this distance above my head, kind of triggered a bypass switch in my mind, and all of a sudden my mind was quite literally replaced by a surge of electricity and light – Samadhi. 

"If the Map is Correct, Experiences Follow" - Satchidanand

This time here in India I was experiencing different levels of Samadhi. During meditation I notice the attainment of a constant flow of energy through my being which gets more and more intense, and rises further and further up my body, the higher I go up the chakras above my head to an inconceivably bright and intense sun. Quite often my breathing slows or even stops a while at the head of an in-breath as my head feels infused with light. My body feels like it is being purified, and in fact it is, as light is being shone through me. I always finish the meditation feeling more positive about my life and the world around me and a feeling that really everything is ok.

Over and above this, I receive what I would describe as bolts of light lasting between 2-5 seconds.

During these brief moments, I am no longer a body with senses or even a sense of weighing or being anything, and am unable to think.

"In the Buddhafield we find we can Move On More Quickly!" - Satchidanand

Thomas Blair