Hassidism, The Art of Dying Chapter 7: The Treasure

RABBI BUNAM USED TO TELL YOUNG MEN WHO CAME TO HIM FOR THE FIRST TIME THE STORY OF RABBI EISIK SON OF RABBI YEKEL IN CRACOW...

'AFTER MANY YEARS OF GREAT POVERTY WHICH HAD NEVER SHAKEN HIS FAITH IN GOD HE DREAMED THAT SOMEONE BADE HIM LOOK FOR TREASURE UNDER THE BRIDGE WHICH LEADS TO THE KING'S PALACE IN PRAGUE. WHEN THE DREAM RECURRED THE THIRD TIME HE SET OUT FOR PRAGUE. BUT THE BRIDGE WAS GUARDED DAY AND NIGHT AND HE DID NOT DARE START DIGGING. NEVERTHELESS HE WENT TO THE BRIDGE EVERY MORNING AND KEPT WALKING AROUND IT UNTIL EVENING.

FINALLY THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARDS WHO HAD BEEN WATCHING HIM ASKED IN A KINDLY WAY WHETHER HE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING OR WAITING FOR SOMEONE.

RABBI EISIK TOLD HIM OF THE DREAM WHICH HAD BROUGHT HIM FROM A FAR AWAY COUNTRY.

THE CAPTAIN LAUGHED 'AND SO TO PLEASE YOUR DREAM YOU WORE OUT YOUR SHOES TO COME HERE YOU POOR FELLOW. AND AS FAR AS HAVING FAITH IN DREAMS IF I HAD HAD IT I SHOULD HAVE HAD TO GO TO CRACOW AND DIG FOR TREASURE UNDER THE STOVE IN THE ROOM OF A JEW-EISIK SON OF YEKEL! THAT'S WHAT THE DREAM TOLD ME. AND IMAGINE WHAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE; ONE HALF OF THE JEWS OVER THERE ARE CALLED EISIK AND THE OTHER HALF YEKEL! AND HE LAUGHED AGAIN. RABBI EISIK BOWED TRAVELED HOME DUG UP THE TREASURE FROM UNDER HIS STOVE, AND BUILT THE HOUSE OF PRAYER WHICH IS CALLED REB EISIK'S SHUL.'

RABBI BUNAM USED TO ADD 'TAKE THIS STORY TO HEART AND MAKE WHAT IT SAYS YOUR OWN. THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CANNOT FIND ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD NOT EVEN AT THE ZADDIK'S AND THERE IS NEVERTHELESS A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN FIND IT.'

LIFE is a search, a constant search, a desperate search, a hopeless search...a search for something one knows not what. There is a deep urge to seek but one knows not what one is seeking.

And there is a certain state of mind in which whatsoever you get is not going to give you any satisfaction. Frustration seems to be the destiny of humanity, because whatsoever you get becomes meaningless the very moment you have got it. You start searching again.

The search continues whether you get anything or not. It seems irrelevant what you have got, what you have not got -- the search continues anyway. The poor are searching, the rich are searching, the i!l are searching, the well are searching, the powerful are searching. the powerless are searching, the stupid are searching, the wise are searching -- and nobody knows exactly what for.

This very search -- what it is and why it is there -- has to be understood. It seems that there is a gap in the human being, in the human mind; in the very structure of the human consciousness there seems to be a hole, a black hole. You go on throwing things into it, and they go on disappearing. Nothing seems to make it full, nothing seems to help towards fulfillment. It is a very feverish search. You seek it in this world, you seek it in the other world; sometimes you seek it in money, in power, in prestige, and sometimes you seek it in God, bliss, love, meditation, prayer -- but the search continues. It seems that man is ill with search.

The search does not allow you to be here and now because the search always leads you somewhere else. The search is a projection, the search is a desire: that somewhere else is what is needed, that it exists but it exists somewhere else, not here where you are. It certainly exists, but not in this moment of time; not now, but somewhere else. It exists then, there, never herenow. It goes on nagging you; it goes on pulling you, pushing you, it goes on throwing you into more and more madness; it drives you crazy and it is never fulfilled.

I have heard about a very great Sufi mystic woman, Rabia al-Adawia.

One evening, people found her sitting on the road searching for something. She was an old woman, her eyes were weak, and it was difficult for her to see. So the neighbours came to help her.

They asked, 'What are you searching for?'

Rabia said, 'That question is irrelevant, I am searching. If you can help me, help.'

They laughed and said, 'Rabia, have you gone mad? You say our question is irrelevant, but if we don't know what you are searching for, how can we help?'

Rabia said, 'Okay. Just to satisfy you, I am searching for my needle, I have lost my needle.'

They started helping her -- but immediately they became aware of the fact that the road was very big and a needle was a very tiny thing.

So they asked Rabia, 'Please tell us where you lost it -- the exact, precise place. Otherwise it is difficult. The road is big and we can go on searching and searching forever. Where did you lose it?'

Rabia said, 'Again you ask an irrelevant question. How is it concerned with my search?'

They stopped. They said, 'You have certainly gone crazy!'

Rabia said, 'Okay. Just to satisfy you, I have lost it in my house.'

They asked, 'Then why are you searching here?'

And Rabia is reported to have said, 'Because here there is light and there is no light inside.'

The sun was setting and there was a little light still left on the road.

This parable is very significant. Have you ever asked yourself what you are searching for? Have you ever made it a point of deep meditation to know what you are searching for? No. Even if in some vague moments, dreaming moments, you have some inkling of what you are searching for, it is never precise, it is never exact. You have not yet defined it. If you try to define it, the more it becomes defined the more you will feel that there is no need to search for it. The search can continue only in a state of vagueness, in a state of dreaming; when things are not clear you simply go on searching. pulled by some inner urge, pushed by some inner urgency. One thing you do know: you need to search. This is an inner need. But you don't know what you are seeking.

And unless you know what you are seeking, how can you find it? It is vague -- you think it is in money, power, prestige, respectability. But then you see people who are respectable, people who are powerful -- they are also seeking. Then you see people who are tremendously rich -- they are also seeking. To the very end of their life they are seeking. So richness is not going to help, power is not going to help. The search continues in spite of what you have.

The search must be for something else. These names, these labels -- money, power, prestige -- these are just to satisfy your mind. They are just to help you feel that you are searching for something. That something is still undefined, a very vague feeling.

The first thing for the real seeker, for the seeker who has become a little alert, aware, is to define the search; to formulate a clear-cut concept of it, what it is; to bring it out of the dreaming consciousness; to encounter it in deep alertness; to look into it directly; to face it. Immediately a transformation starts happening. If you start defining your search, you will start losing your interest in the search. The more defined it becomes, the less it is there. Once it is clearly known what it is, suddenly it disappears. It exists only when you are not attentive.

Let it be repeated: the search exists only when you are sleepy; the search exists only when you are not aware; the search exists only in your unawareness. The unawareness creates the search.

Yes, Rabia is right. Inside there is no light. And because there is no light and no consciousness inside, of course you go on searching outside -- because outside it seems more clear.

Our senses are all extrovert. The eyes open outwards, the hands move, spread outwards, the legs move into the outside, the ears listen to the outside noises, sounds. Whatsoever is available to you is all opening towards the outside; all the five senses move in an extrovert way. You start searching there where you see, feel, touch -- the light of the senses falls outside. And the seeker is inside.

This dichotomy has to be understood. The seeker is inside but because the light is outside, the seeker starts moving in an ambitious way, trying to find something outside which will be fulfilling.

It is never going to happen. It has never happened. It cannot happen in the nature of things -- because, unless you have sought the seeker, all your search is meaningless. Unless you come to know who you are, all that you seek is futile, because you don't know the seeker. Without knowing the seeker how can you move in the right dimension, in the right direction? It is impossible. The first things should be considered first.

So these two things are very important: first, make it absolutely clear to yourself what your object is. Don't just go on stumbling in darkness. Focus your attention on the object -- what you are really searching for. Because sometimes you want one thing and you go on searching for something else, so even if you succeed you will not be fulfilled. Have you seen people who have succeeded? Can you find bigger failures anywhere else? You have heard the proverb that nothing succeeds like success. It is absolutely wrong. I would like to tell you: nothing fails like success. The proverb must have been invented by stupid people. Nothing fails like success.

It is said about Alexander the Great that the day he became the world conqueror he closed the doors of his room and started weeping. I don't know whether it really happened or not, but if he was even a little intelligent it must have happened.

His generals were very disturbed. What has happened? They had never seen Alexander weeping. He was not that type of man, he was a great warrior. They had seen him in great difficulties, in situations where life was very much in danger, where death was very imminent, and they had not seen even a tear coming out of his eyes. They had never seen him in any desperate, hopeless moment. What has happened to him now -- now when he has succeeded, when he is the world conqueror?

They knocked on the door, they went in and they asked, 'What has happened to you? Why are you crying like a child?' He said, 'Now that I have succeeded, I know it has been a failure. Now I know that I stand exactly in the same place as I used to be in when I started this nonsense of conquering the world.And the point has become clear to me now because there is no other world to conquer anymore -- otherwise I could have remained on the journey, I could have started conquering another world. Now there is no other world to conquer, now there is nothing else to do, and suddenly I am thrown to myself.'

A successful man is always thrown to himself in the end and then he suffers tortures of hell because he wasted his whole life. He searched and searched, he staked everything that he had, now he is successful -- and his heart is empty and his soul is meaningless and there is no fragrance, there is no benediction.

So the first thing is to know exactly what you are seeking. I insist upon it because the more you focus your eyes on the object of your search, the more the object starts disappearing. When your eyes are absolutely fixed, suddenly there is nothing to seek; immediately your eyes start turning towards yourself. When there is no object for search, when all objects have disappeared, there is emptiness. In that emptiness is conversion, turning in. You suddenly start looking at yourself. Now there is nothing to seek, and a new desire arises to know this seeker.

If there is something to seek, you are a worldly man; if there is nothing to seek, and the question 'Who is this seeker?' has become important to you, then you are a religious man. This is the way I define the worldly and the religious.

If you are still seeking something -- maybe in the other life, on the other shore, in heaven, in paradise, in moksha, it makes no difference -- you are still a worldly man. If all seeking has stopped and you have suddenly become aware that now there is only one thing to know -- 'Who is this seeker in me? What is this energy that wants to seek? Who am I?' -- then there is a transformation. All values change suddenly. You start moving inwards.

Then Rabia is no longer sitting on the road searching for a needle that is lost somewhere in the darkness of one's own inner soul. Once you have started moving inwards.... In the beginning it is very dark -- Rabia is right. It is very, very dark because for lives together you have never been inside -- your eyes have been focussed on the outside world.

Have you watched it? Observed? Sometimes when you come in from the road where it is very sunny and the sun is hot and there is bright light -- when you suddenly come into the room or into the house it is very dark because the eyes are focussed for the outside light, for much light. When there is much light, the eyes shrink. In darkness the eyes have to relax. A bigger aperture is needed in darkness; in light a smaller aperture is enough. That's how the camera functions and that's how your eye functions. The camera has been invented along the lines of the human eye.

So when you suddenly come from the outside, your own house looks dark. But if you sit a little while, by and by the darkness disappears. There is more light; your eyes are settling.

For many lives together you have been outside in the hot sun, in the world, so when you go in you have completely forgotten how to enter and how to re-adjust your eyes. Meditation is nothing but a re-adjustment of your vision, a re-adjustment of your seeing faculty, of your eyes. In India that is what is called your third eye. It is not an eye somewhere, it is a re-adjustment, a total re-adjustment of your vision. By and by the darkness is no longer dark; a subtle, suffused light starts being felt.

And if you go on looking inside -- it takes time -- gradually, slowly, you start feeling a beautiful light inside. But it is not aggressive light;it is not like the sun, it is more like the moon. It is not glaring, it is not dazzling, it is very cool; it is not hot, it is very compassionate, it is very soothing, it is a balm.

By and by, when you have got adjusted to the inside light, you will see that you are the very source. The seeker is the sought. Then you will see that the treasure is within you and the whole problem was that you were seeking for it outside. You were seeking for it somewhere outside and it has always been there inside you, it has always been here within you. You were seeking in a wrong direction, that's all.

Everything is available to you as much as it is available to anyone else, as much as it is available to a Buddha, to a Baal-Shem, to a Moses, to Mohammed. It is all available to you, only you are looking in the wrong direction. As far as the treasure is concerned you are not poorer than Buddha or Mohammed -- no, God has never created a poor man. It does not happen, it cannot happen -- because God creates you out of his richness. How can he create a poor man? You are his overflowing, you are part of his being, how can you be poor? You are rich, infinitely rich, as rich as God himself.

But you are looking in the wrong direction. The direction is wrong, that's why you go on missing. And it is not that you will not succeed in life, you can succeed, but still you will be a failure. Nothing is going to satisfy you because nothing can be attained in the outside world which can be comparable to the inner treasure, to the inner light, to the inner bliss.

Now this story. This story is tremendously meaningful.

RABBI BUNAM USED TO TELL YOUNG MEN WHO CAME TO HIM FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE STORY OF RABBI EISIK, SON OF RABBI YEKEL IN CRACOW.... 'AFTER MANY YEARS OF GREAT POVERTY, WHICH HAD NEVER SHAKEN HIS FAITH IN GOD, HE DREAMED THAT SOMEONE BADE HIM TOOK FOR TREASURE UNDER THE BRIDGE WHICH LEADS TO THE KING'S PALACE IN PRAGUE. WHEN THE DREAM RECURRED THE THIRD TIME HE SET OUT FOR PRAGUE. BUT THE BRIDGE WAS GUARDED DAY AND NIGHT AND HE DID NOT DARE START DIGGING. NEVERTHELESS HE WENT TO THE BRIDGE EVERY MORNING AND KEPT WALKING AROUND IT UNTIL EVENING.

FINALLY, THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARDS, WHO HAD BEEN WATCHING HIM, ASKED IN A KINDLY WAY WHETHER HE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING, OR WAITING FOR SOMEONE.

RABBI EISIK TOLD HIM OF THE DREAM WHICH HAD BROUGHT HIM FROM A FAR AWAY COUNTRY.

THE CAPTAIN LAUGHED, 'AND SO TO PLEASE YOUR DREAM YOU WORE OUT YOUR SHOES TO COME HERE! YOU POOR FELLOW. AND AS FOR HAVING FAITH IN DREAMS, IF I HAD HAD IT I WOULD HAVE HAD TO GO TO CRACOW AND DIG FOR TREASURE UNDER THE STOVE IN THE ROOM OF A JEW -- EISIK, SON OF YEKEL! THAT'S WHAT THE DREAM TOLD ME. AND IMAGINE WHAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE; ONE HALF OF THE JEWS OVER THERE ARE CALLED EISIK, AND THE OTHER HALF YEKEL! AND HE LAUGHED AGAIN. RABBI EISIK BOWED, TRAVELED HOME, DUG UP THE TREASURE FROM UNDER HIS STOVE, AND BUILT THE HOUSE OF PRAYER WHICH IS CALLED REB EISIK'S SHUL.'

RABBI BUNAM USED TO ADD, 'TAKE THIS STORY TO HEART AND MAKE WHAT IT SAYS YOUR OWN. THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CANNOT FIND ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, NOT EVEN AT THE ZADDIK'S, AND THERE IS, NEVERTHELESS, A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN FIND IT.'

The first thing to be under stood about the story is that he dreamed. All desiring is dreaming and all dreaming takes you away from you -- that is the very nature of the dream.

You may be sleeping in Poona and you may dream of Philadelphia. In the morning you will not wake up in Philadelphia, you will wake up in Poona. In a dream you can be anywhere; a dream has a tremendous freedom because it is unreal. In a dream you can be anywhere: on the moon, on Mars. You can choose any planet, it is your game. In a d ream you can be anywhere, there is only one place you cannot be -- that is where you are. This is the first thing to be understood about the dreaming consciousness. If you are where you are, then the dream cannot exist, because then there is no point in the dream, then there is no meaning in the dream. If you are exactly where you are and you are exactly what you are, then how can the dream exist? The dream can exist only if you go away from you. You may be a poor man and you dream about being an emperor. You may be an ordinary man and you dream about yourself being extraordinary. You walk on the earth and you dream that you fly in the sky. The dream has to be a falsification of reality; the dream has to be something else than reality.

In reality there is no dreaming, so those who want to know the real have to stop dreaming.

In India we have divided human consciousness into four stages. We call the first stage the ordinary waking consciousness. Right now you are in the ordinary waking consciousness. What is an ordinary waking consciousness? You appear to be awake but you are not. You are a little bit awake, but that little bit is so small that it doesn't make much difference.

You can walk to your home, you can recognise your wife or your husband, you can drive your car...that little bit is only enough for this. It gives you a sort of efficiency -- that's all. But it is a very small consciousness, exhausted very easily, lost very easily. If somebody insults you it is lost, it is exhausted. If somebody insults you, you become angry. You are no longer conscious. That's why after anger many people say, 'Why did I do it? How did I do it? How could I do it? It happened in spite of me.' Yes, they are right -- it happened in spite of you because you lost your consciousness. In anger, in violent rage, people are possessed; they do things they would never do if they were a little aware. They can kill, they can destroy; they can even destroy themselves.

The ordinary waking consciousness is only 'waking' for name's sake -- deep down dreams continue. Just a small tip of the iceberg is alert -- most of the thing is underneath, in darkness. Watch it sometimes. Just anywhere close your eyes and look within: you will see dreams floating like clouds surrounding you. You can sit on the chair any moment of the day, close your eyes, relax, and suddenly you see that the dreams have started. In fact they have not started, they were continuing -- just as during the day stars disappear from the sky. They don't really disappear, they are there, but because of the light of the sun you don't see them. If you go into a deep well, a very deep, dark well, from the dark well you can look at the sky and you will be able to recognise a few stars -- even at midday. The stars are there; when night Comes they don't reappear, they have always been there, all twenty-four hours. They don't go anywhere, the sunlight just hides them.

Exactly the same is the case with your dreaming: it is just below the surface, just underground it continues. On the top of it is a little layer of awareness, underneath are a thousand and one dreams. Close your eyes any time and you will find yourself dreaming. 'That's why people are in great difficulty when they start meditating. They come to me and they say, 'This is something funny, strange. We never thought that there were so many thoughts.' They have never closed their eyes, they have never sat in a relaxed posture, they have never gone in to see what was happening there because they were too engaged in the outside world, they were too occupied. Because of that occupation they never became aware of this constant activity inside.

In India, the ordinary waking consciousness is called the first state. The second state is that of dreaming. Any time you close your eyes you are in it. At night you are continuously in it, almost continuously. Whether you remember your dream in the morning or not is not of much importance, you go on dreaming. There are at least eight cycles of dreaming during the night. One cycle continues for many minutes -- fifteen, twenty minutes; then there is a gap; then there is another cycle; then there is a gap; then again there is a cycle. Throughout the whole night you are continuously dreaming and dreaming and dreaming. This is the second state of consciousness.

This parable is concerned with the second state of consciousness. Ordinarily all desires exist in the second state of consciousness, the dreaming state. Desire is a dream and to work for a dream is doomed from the very beginning, because a dream can never become real. Even if sometimes you feel it has become almost real, it never becomes real -- a dream by nature is empty. It has no substance in it.

The third state is sleep, deep sleep, SUSHUPTI. In it all dreaming disappears -- but all consciousness also. While you are awake there is a little awareness, very little; when you are dreaming, even that little awareness disappears. But still there is an iota of awareness -- that's why you can remember in the morning that you had a dream, such and such a dream. But in deep sleep even that disappears. It is as if you have completely disappeared. Nothing remains. A nothingness surrounds you.

These are the three ordinary states. The fourth state is called TURIYA. The fourth is simply called 'the fourth'. TURIYA means 'the fourth'. The fourth state is that of a Buddha. It is almost like dreamless sleep with one difference -- that difference is very great. It is as peaceful as deep sleep, as without dreams as deep sleep, but it is absolutely alert, aware.

Krishna says in his Gita that a real yogi never sleeps. That does not mean that a real yogi simply sits awake in his room the whole night. There are a few foolish people who are doing that. That a real yogi never sleeps means that while he is asleep he remains aware, alert.

Ananda lived with Buddha for forty years. He asked Buddha one day, 'One thing surprises me very much; I am intrigued. You will have to answer me. This is just out of curiosity but I cannot contain it anymore. When you sleep at night I have watched you many times, for hours together, and you sleep in such a way that it seems as if you are awake. You sleep in such a graceful way; your face, your body -- everything is so graceful. I have seen many other people sleeping, and they start mumbling, their faces go through contortions, their bodies lose all grace, their faces become ugly, they don't look beautiful any more....' All beauty has to be managed, controlled, practised; in deep sleep it disappears. 'And, one thing more,' Ananda said. 'You never change your posture you remain in the same posture. Wherever you put your hand in the beginning, you keep it there the whole night. You never change it. It seems that deep down you are keeping absolutely alert.' Buddha said, 'You are right. That happens when meditation is perfect.'

Then awareness penetrates your being so deeply that you are aware in all of the four states. When you are aware in all four states dreaming absolutely disappears, because in an alert mind a dream cannot exist. And the ordinary waking state becomes an extraordinary waking state -- what Gurdjieff calls self-remembering. One remembers oneself absolutely, each moment. There is no gap. The remembrance is a continuity. Then one becomes a luminous being.

And deep sleep is there but its quality changes completely. The body is asleep but the soul is awake and alert, watchful. The whole body is deep in darkness but the lamp of inner consciousness burns bright.

This story says:

AFTER MANY YEARS OF GREAT POVERTY, WHICH HAD NEVER SHAKEN HIS FAITH IN GOD, HE DREAMED THAT SOMEONE BADE HIM LOOK FOR TREASURE UNDER THE BRIDGE WHICH LEADS TO THE KING'S PALACE IN PRAGUE.

After many years of great poverty it is natural that one should start dreaming about treasures. We always dream about that which we don't have. Fast for one day and in the night you will dream about food. Try to force celibacy upon yourself and your dreams will become sexual, they will have a quality of sexuality.

That's why psychoanalysis says that the analysis of dreams is of tremendous import, because it shows what you are repressing. Your dream becomes a symbolic indication of the repressed content of your mind. If a person continuously dreams about food, about feasts, that simply shows that the person is starving himself. Jaina monks always dream about food -- they may say so, they may not. If you fast too much you are bound to dream about food. That's why many religious saints become so afraid of falling asleep.

Even Mahatma Gandhi was very afraid to go into sleep. He was trying to reduce it to as little as possible. Religious people make it a point to try not to sleep for too long -- four hours, five hours at the most. Three is the ideal. Why? Because once your need of bodily rest is satisfied your mind starts weaving and spinning dreams. And immediately the mind brings up things which you have been repressing Mahatma Gandhi said, 'I have become a celibate as far as my waking consciousness is concerned, but in my d reams I am not a celibate.' He was a true man in a sense -- truer than other so-called saints. At least he accepted that in his dreams he was not yet celibate.

But unless you are celibate in your dreams you are not yet celibate, because the dream reveals whatsoever you are repressing during the day. The dream simply brings it back to your consciousness. Dreaming is a language, a communication from the unconscious which is saying, 'Please don't do this to me. It is impossible to tolerate. Stop this nonsense. You are destroying my natural spontaneity. Allow me, allow whatsoever is potential in me to flower.'

When a person represses nothing, dreams disappear. So a Buddha never dreams. If your meditation goes deep you will immediately find that your dreams are becoming less and less and less. The day your dreams completely disappear and you attain to clarity in your sleep -- no clouds, no smoke, no thoughts; simple, silent sleep, without any interference of dreams -- that day you have become a Buddha, your meditation has come to fruition.

Psychoanalysis insists that dreams have to be understood because man is very cunning: he can deceive while he is awake but he cannot deceive when he is in a dream. A dream is truer...Look at the irony. A dream is more true about you than your so-called waking consciousness. Man has become so false. man has become so fake that the waking consciousness cannot be relied upon -- you have corrupted it too much. A psychoanalyst immediately wants to go into your dreams, he does not want to know about your religion, he does not want to know about your philosophy of life, he does not want to know whether you are a Hindu or a Christian, an Indian or an American -- that is all nonsense. He wants to know what your dreams are. Look at the irony -- your dreams have become so real that your reality is less real than your dreams. You are living such a pseudo-life, inauthentic, false, that the psychoanalyst has to go to your dreams to find a few glimpses of truth. Only your dreams are still beyond your control.

There are people who try to control dreams also. tn the East methods have been invented to control dreams. That means you are not even allowing the unconscious to convey any message to you. You can do that too. You can cultivate dreams if you work hard. You can start planning your dreams. You can give a story to your own unconscious to unfold in your dreams. If you do it consistently, every day, by and by you will be able to corrupt the unconscious.

For example, once a devotee of Krishna stayed with me. He said, 'I always dream of Krishna.' I asked him, 'How do you manage it? A dream is not something that you can manage. What method have you tried?' He said, 'A simple method which my guru gave to me. Every night when I go to sleep, I go on thinking and thinking about Krishna, fantasising. After three years of continuously practising fantasy while falling asleep, one day it happened. Whatsoever I had fantasised continued in my dream and it became my dream. Since then I have been having tremendously religious dreams.'

I said, 'You just go into the details -- because you may have managed the story but the unconscious will be sending messages in the story itself, the unconscious can use your story to send its messages.' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'You simply give me the content of your dream, the detailed content.'

And he started telling me. It was absolutely sexual. Krishna was his lover and he had become a male gopi, a boyfriend. The content was homosexual. And they were dancing together and kissing and hugging and loving each other.

I said, 'You have changed the figure, but the content still remains. And my understanding is that you are a homosexual.' He was very much disturbed and shocked. He said, 'What do you mean? How have you come to know about it?' I told him, 'Your dream is a clear message.'

He started weeping and crying. He said, 'From my childhood I was never attracted to women, I was always attracted to men. And I thought that it was good because women would distract me from my path.'

The homosexual content had entered into his religious story. Krishna was nothing but a homosexual partner. He became very disturbed and that very night the dream disappeared and a purely ",homosexual dream entered. He said, 'What have you done to me?' I said, 'I have not done anything. I have simply made your message clear to you. You can fabricate a story but that doesn't matter, the ';inner content remains the same.'

Just see. Go to a person who is not religious. You will find nude pictures of women in Indian homes, in bachelors' homes. These people are not religious. But go to a religious man. He may have beautiful pictures of gods and goddesses but just look at the content, at the detail of it. Whether it is a film actress or whether it is a goddess makes no difference. Just look at the breasts! They will indicate exactly the same content. The story is different. Somebody has a picture of a goddess on his wall and somebody has Elizabeth Taylor or somebody else's picture, or Sophia Loren -- but it makes no difference. Whether you call her a goddess or you call her a film actress makes no difference. Look at the detail and you will see what that man is hankering after.

You can manipulate your dreams, you can destroy the purity of your unconscious's messages but still the unconscious will go on giving you messages. It has to. It has to scream to you because you are destroying your own nature, your own spontaneity.

This dream happened AFTER MANY YEARS OF GREAT POVERTY WHICH HAD NEVER SHAKEN HIS FAITH IN GOD. HE DREAMED THAT SOMEONE BADE HIM LOOK FOR TREASURE UNDER THE BRIDGE WHICH LEADS TO THE KING'S PALACE IN PRAGUE.

Poor men always dream of kings' palaces and kings' treasure and things like that. If you have very rich dreams it simply shows that you are a poor man. Only very rich people dream of becoming sannyasins -- a Buddha, a Mahavir. Living in their palaces they had dreams of becoming sannyasins, because they were fed up with their success. Success was finished for them, it had no charm, it had no allurement, it had no fascination any more. They thought now that a poor man's life is a real life and they started to seek somewhere else where they were not.

But the dream always goes somewhere else. The rich man thinks that the poor man is living a real life, and the poor man thinks that the rich man is living a real life. But the fallacy is the same: they both think, 'Real life is somewhere else where I am not. Somehow I am always excluded from the real life -- somebody else is enjoying it. Life is always happening somewhere else. Wherever I go, life simply disappears. Wherever I reach for it I always find emptiness.' But it is always happening somewhere else. Life seems to be like the horizon, it is just ahead somewhere. It is a mirage.

WHEN THE DREAM RECURRED THE THIRD TIME HE SET OUT FOR PRAGUE.

And remember, if a dream recurs too many times it almost starts looking real. Repetition makes things real.

Adolf Hitler wrote in his autobiography 'Mein Kampf' that if you go on repeating a lie it becomes real. Repetition is the key. And he should know. He practised it. He is not simply asserting something theoretical, he practised it the whole of his life. He uttered lies, absolutely absurd lies, but one thing he insisted on -- he went on repeating. When you go on repeating some lie again and again and again it starts becoming real, because the mind starts getting hypnotised by it.

Repetition is the method of hypnosis. Repeat anything and it becomes engraved in your being -- that's how we are deluded in life. If you repeat, 'This woman is beautiful, this woman is beautiful...' if you go on repeating it, you will start seeing beauty in her. It may be there, it may not be there, it doesn't matter -- if you repeat it long enough it will become true. If you think that money is the goal of life, go on repeating it and it will become your goal of life.

That's how all advertising functions: it just goes on repeating. The advertiser believes in the science of repetition; he simply goes on repeating that this brand of cigarette is the best. When you read it for the first time you may not believe it. But next time, again and again -- how long can you remain an unbeliever? By and by the belief will arise. And the belief will be such that you may not even become conscious of it. It will be subliminal, it will be just underneath consciousness. One day suddenly, when you go to the store and the store-keeper asks what brand of cigarette you need, you will say a certain brand. That repetition worked. It hypnotised you.

That's how religions have been functioning in the world -- and all politics depends on it too. Advertise, go on repeating to the public, and don't be bothered whether they believe or not -- that's not the point. Hitler says there is only one difference between a truth and a lie: the truth is a lie that has been repeated very often. And man can believe any lies. Man's gullibility is infinite. Man can believe in hell, man can believe in heaven, man can believe in angels, man can believe in devils, man can believe in anything! You just go on repeating.

And there is no need to argue. An advertisement never argues -- have you observed the fact? There is no need to argue. The advertisement simply persuades you, it never argues. An arguer may not be able to convince you but a person who persuades you, who simply goes on throwing soft suggestions at you, not direct arguments.... Because when somebody argues with you, you may become defensive, but if somebody simply goes on hinting at certain things, not in any direct way, just supposing, you are more prone to be convinced by it.

Dreaming functions in that way; a dream is a salesman. A dream simply goes on repeating itself. It never argues, it simply insists on being repeated. And, often repeated, one starts believing in it.

WHEN IT HAPPENED THRICE HE SET OUT FOR PRAGUE. BUT THE BRIDGE WAS GUARDED DAY AND NIGHT AND HE DID NOT DARE START DIGGING.

In the world there is much competition. Every place is guarded and every object has to be fought for -- it is not easy. This is something very strange. In this world nothing is meaningful and yet for everything you have to fight. Nothing seems to be significant but there is much competition, much conflict. Everybody is rushing towards it, that creates the trouble -- it is not that there is something in it. There is nothing in it but everybody is trying to rush towards it. Everybody is hankering for everybody else's place that's why the world is so crowded.

In fact, it is not as crowded as it seems. Look...we are sitting here, everybody is sitting in his own place. This place is not crowded at all. But if a frenzy suddenly takes hold of your mind and everybody starts trying to reach another's place, then this place would be crowded. Right now you are sitting religiously; in that situation you would be rushing at each other politically. Right now you are satisfied with your place and you are not hankering for anybody's place -- at least not in Chuang Tzu auditorium. But if you start pushing yourself into other's places, others will become defensive, they will start pushing you. A fight, a war, will ensue.

Why are there so many wars in the world? The reason is that everybody is trying to have another's territory. And the other may be trying the same thing. He may be looking at you.

BUT THE BRIDGE WAS GUARDED DAY AND NIGHT AND HE DID NOT DARE START DIGGING. NEVERTHELESS HE WENT TO THE BRIDGE EVERY MORNING AND KEPT WALKING AROUND IT UNTIL EVENING.

That's what many people are doing. Very few succeed. many simply walk around. But they go on doing it. Even if you cannot succeed, your desires, your hopes, are continuously there. At least you can go to the place, near the palace, and you can walk around. The whole day, from morning to evening he was walking around -- that's what many people are doing, waiting for some miracle to happen. Someday there may be no guards, someday may be a holiday, someday there may be a possibility to dig...one waits and one goes on waiting. It never happens but one' s whole life is wasted in waiting.

NEVERTHELESS HE WENT TO THE BRIDGE EVERY MORNING AND KEPT WALKING AROUND IT UNTIL EVENING.

FINALLY, THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARDS, WHO HAD BEEN WATCHING HIM, ASKED IN A KINDLY WAY WHETHER HE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING OR WAITING FOR SOMEONE.

RABBI EISIK TOLD HIM OF THE DREAM WHICH HAD BROUGHT HIM FROM A FAR AWAY COUNTRY.

THE CAPTAIN LAUGHED, 'AND SO TO PLEASE YOUR DREAM YOU WORE OUT YOUR SHOES TO COME HERE! YOU POOR FELLOW. AND AS FOR HAVING FAITH IN DREAMS, IF I HAD HAD IT I WOULD HAVE HAD TO GO TO CRACOW AND DIG FOR TREASURE UNDER THE STOVE IN THE ROOM OF A JEW -- EISIK, SON OF YEKEL! THAT'S WHAT THE DREAM TOLD ME. AND IMAGINE WHAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE; ONE HALF OF THE JEWS OVER THERE ARE CALLED EISIK, AND THE OTHER HALF YEKEL!' AND HE LAUGHED AGAIN. RABBI EISIK BOWED, TRAVELED HOME, DUG UP THE TREASURE FROM UNDER HIS STOVE, AND BUILT THE HOUSE OF PRAYER WHICH IS CALLED REB EISIK'S SHUL.

it is a beautiful story -- and very true. That is how it is happening in life. You are looking somewhere else for that which is already there within you.

Rabbi Eisik bowed, thanked the man, traveled home.... This is the journey of religion: traveling back home. And a man who has understood life always pays his respect towards life because it has shocked you out of your dreams. He is not against life; he simply knows that he has nothing to do with life, he simply knows that he was searching in a wrong direction.

Life has always been compassionate, life has been telling you again and again that you can find nothing here -- go back home. But you don't listen.

You earn money, and one day money is there -- then life says to you, 'What have you got?' But you don't listen. Now you think you have to put your money into politics, you have to become a prime minister or a president -- then everything will be okay. One day you are a prime minister, and life again says, 'What have you got?' You don't listen. You go on thinking of something else and something else and something else. Life is vast -- that's why many lives are wasted.

But don't be angry at life. It is not life that is frustrating you, it is you who are not listening to life. And this I call a criterion, a touchstone: if you see a saint who is against life, bitter against life, know well he has not understood yet. Otherwise he will bow down to life in deep respect and reverence, because life has awakened him out of his dreams. Life is very shocking, that's why. Life is painful. The pain comes because you are desiring something which is not possible. It doesn't come from life, it comes from your expectation.

People say that man proposes and God disposes. It has never happened. God has never disposed of anything. But in your own proposition you have disposed of something yourself. Listen to God's proposition, keep your own proposition to yourself. Keep quiet. Listen to what the whole is willing -- don't try to have your private goals, don't try to have your private desires. Don't ask anything individually -- the whole is moving towards its destiny. You simply be part of it. Co-operate. Don't be in a conflict. Surrender to it. And life always sends you back to you r own reality -- that is why it is shocking.

It shocks you because it doesn't fulfil your dreams. And it is good that life never fulfils your dreams -- it always goes on disposing, in a way. It gives you a thousand and one opportunities to be frustrated so that you can understand that expectations are not good and dreams are futile and desires are never fulfilled. Then you drop desiring, you drop dreaming, you drop proposing. Suddenly you are back home and the treasure is there.

RABBI EISIK BOWED, TRAVELED HOME, DUG UP THE TREASURE FROM UNDER HIS STOVE, AND BUILT THE HOUSE OF PRAYER WHICH IS CALLED REB EISIK'S SHUL.

The treasure had always been waiting there under his stove. In the same room he dreamed that the treasure was somewhere near the palace of the king in Prague. In his own room, in his own house, it was just there waiting to be dug up.

This is very indicative. Your treasure is in your own being -- don't look for it somewhere else. Ali palaces and all bridges to the palace are meaningless; you have to create your own bridge within your own being. The palace is there; the treasure is there.

God never sends anybody into this world without a treasure. He sends you ready for every situation -- how can it be otherwise? When a father sends his son on a long journey he makes every preparation. Even for unexpected situations the father provides. He makes all provisions.

You are carrying everything that you need. Just go into the seeker and don't go seeking outside. Seek the seeker, let the seeker be the sought.

Because of this, Rabbi Eisik built the house of prayer. It was such a tremendous revelation, such a tremendous experience -- 'God has put the treasure where I have always lived. I was poor because of myself, I was not poor because God wanted me to be poor. As far as he is concerned I was a king, always a king.' Because of this understanding he made a prayer house, a temple, out of this treasure. He used it well.

Whenever somebody comes to his innermost treasure, prayer arises -- that is the meaning of the story. He made a house of prayer called Reb Eisik's Shul. Whenever you understand the grace of God, the compassion, the love, what else can you do? A great prayer of thankfulness rises into your being, you feel so overpowered by his love, overwhelmed. What else can you do? You simply bow down and you pray.

And remember, if you pray to ask for something, it is not prayer. When you pray to thank him for something, only then is it prayer. Prayer is always a thanksgiving. If you ask for something then the prayer is still corrupted by desire. Then it is not prayer yet -- it is still poisoned by dreaming. Real prayer happens only when you have attained to yourself, when you have known what God has given to you already without your asking for it. When you realise what you have been given, what infinite sources have been given to you, a prayer arises You would like to say to God, 'Thankyou.' There is nothing else in it but a pure thank you.

When a prayer is just a thank you it is a prayer. Never ask for anything in a prayer; never say, 'Do this, do that; don't do this, don't do that.' Never advise God. That shows your irreligiousness, that shows your lack of trust. Thank him. Your life is already a benediction, a blessing. Each moment is such pure joy, but you are missing it, that I know. That's why the prayer is not arising -- otherwise you would build a house of prayer; your whole life would become that house of prayer; you would become that temple -- his shrine. His shrine would burst from your being. He would flower in you and his fragrance would spread to the winds.

It does not happen because you are missing something. And you are missing not because of him, you are missing because of yourself. If you desire, and you think that the treasure is somewhere else, you move into the future. The future is needed because you desire; the future is a by-product of desiring. How can you project desire in the present? The present is already here, you cannot project any desire in it, it does not allow desire. If you desire, the present has already gone; you can desire only in the future, only in the tomorrow.

This has to be understood. Desire is always in the future but the future is never there. The future is that which is not, and desire is only in the future. And desire comes out of the past which also is not. The past is gone and the future has not yet come. Desire comes out of the past because you must have known what you desire in the past somehow. How can you desire something which is absolutely new? You cannot desire the new. You can only ask for a repetition. You had some money, you will ask for more -- but money you know. You had some power, you ask for more -- but power you know. Man cannot desire the unknown. Desire is just a repetition of the known. Just look at it. You have known it and you are not fulfilled, so you are asking for it again. Do you think you will be fulfilled? At the most you can ask for more quantity, but if one rupee is not fulfilling, how can a thousand rupees be fulfilling? If one rupee is unfulfilling, ten thousand rupees will be ten thousandfold more unfulfilling -- that is simple logic. If one woman has not fulfilled you, then ten thousand women are not going to fulfil you. If one woman has created such a hell then ten thousand women...just think! It is simple arithmetic. You can solve it.

You can ask only out of the past and into the future and both are non-existential. That which exists is the present. This very moment is the only moment there is. You cannot desire in it, you can just be in it. You can just enjoy it.

And I have never come across a person who can be miserable in the present. You will be surprised. Many times people come to me and they say that they are very miserable and this and that, and I say to them, 'Close your eyes and find out right now whether you are miserable or not.' They close their eyes, then they open their eyes, and they say, 'Right now I am not miserable.'

Right now nobody is miserable. There is no possibility. It is not allowed by the nature of things. This very moment are you miserable? This very moment? You may have been miserable a moment before, okay -- that is right. Or you may be miserable a moment afterwards -- that too is allowed. But this very moment, between these two non-existential moments, are you miserable? Nobody has ever been.

This moment is always pure benediction; this moment is always one of joy, of tremendous delight; this moment is God's moment. The past is yours, the future is yours, the present is God's. We divide time into three tenses -- past, present, future -- but we should not divide it in that way. That division is not right. Time can be divided between the past and the future but the present is not part of time, it is part of eternity. God has no past, remember, you cannot say God was. God has no future -- you cannot say God will be. God has only one tense -- present. God is. God always is. In fact, God is only another name for the 'isness' of existence. Whenever you are also in the moment, whenever you are also in this 'isness', you are happy, blessed. A prayer arises. You become a shrine. You will become Reb Eisik's Shul, you will become a prayer house.

Zaddik means the Master. The word 'zaddik' comes from a Hebrew root which means: the pure, the purest, purity itself. The Zaddik means the Master -- who has attained to his 'presentness', who is no longer in the past and no longer in the future, who is just herenow, who is just a presence. To be in the presence of a Master is to be in the presence of a presence. That's all. And to be in the presence of a Master can help you to be present because his presence can become infectious.

But Rabbi Bunam says, 'There IS something you cannot find anywhere in the world, not even at the Zaddik's....' He says that there is something which you cannot find anywhere, not even in the presence of a Master. But don't feel hopeless -- there is nevertheless a place where you can find it.

That place is you, and that time is now. In fact, the Zaddik's, the Master's, effort is nothing but to throw you to your 'presentness', to make you available to God, or, to make God available to you.

This 'presentness' cannot be taught but it can be caught -- hence the value of SATSANG, of being in the presence of a Zaddik, of a Master, of a guru. Just to be there doing nothing.... In fact, a Master is not doing anything. He is just there. A Master is a prayer, a constant thankfulness. With each breath he is thanking God -- not verbally, his very breathing is a thankfulness; with each beat of his heart he goes on saying thank you. His thank you is not verbal, it is existential. His being is prayer. To be in the presence of such a man may help you to have some taste of prayer. That taste will start a new journey in your life -- the inward journey.

You have been seeking for centuries, for millennia, and you have not yet found. Now, let the seeker be the sought. You have traveled outside for so long that you are very tired, very exhausted.

Jesus says, 'Those who are tired, those whose burden is heavy, they should come to me. I will give them rest.' What does he mean? He simply means, 'Come to me. I am at rest. Be close to me. Have a taste of it.' And that very taste will turn the tide and you will start moving inwards.

You are here with me. Have a taste of my being. Don't just listen to my words, listen to me. Taste me. And then suddenly you will be here and now, and you will be turning inwards and you will not ask for anything and you will not desire anything and you will not have any movement into the future and you will not have any clinging with the past.

And then this moment is liberation, this moment is enlightenment.

Hassidism

THE ART OF DYING

Chapter-7

The Treasure