The sixth question:

Question 6

I AM TIRED. I FEEL I AM DYING ALL THE TIME. BUT WHAT CHANGES? NOTHING. EVEN IF I DIE, LIFE AND DEATH ARE PERFECT, PERFECTLY ROUND, AND I GO ON RUNNING AFTER MY OWN TAIL. IS THERE NO PLACE WHERE I CAN STOP? ONE MOMENT IN WHICH I CAN STOP, ONE SINGLE MOMENT -- BUT THEN I GO ON PASSING, RUNNING, AND I MISS I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT. THEN I CRY. WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?

Sangitam, one is dying every moment, but that is only half the story. The other half is: one is being born also, every moment. Otherwise how can you go on dying? One moment you died, then there is nothing left. Who will die again? You are being born every moment also; that's why you can die again and be born again. Life is a process of life-death: one side is birth, the other side is death. And EACH moment it is happening. You are only seeing the half, and that is making you very afraid, tired, exhausted. Look at the whole thing.

One thing dies, immediately it is born in another form: one wave disappears, another wave has appeared; one flower falls down into the earth, another bud has opened. Life is continuous and eternal, birth and death are episodes in it. It does not begin with birth and it does not end with death. It uses birth and death as you use your two legs. Life uses birth and death as two wings. Life is neither -- it is neither birth nor death. It is between the two. And each moment you are dying and each moment you are born. And you are asking, "Can I find a moment where everything stops?" That moment comes every moment between these two processes. One process is death, another process is birth. Between these there is a pause, and that pause is the present. Being in that pause you will become MOJUD. Khidr will appear to you, your inner Master will start speaking to you.

It will be good, Sangitam, for you to do something like breath-watching. You breathe in -- watch it. Don't change the breath. I'm not saying to do some PRANAYAMA; YOU are not to take deep breaths or long or short or anything. You are not to do ANYTHING with the breath, you simply let it come in. It is coming on its own, naturally; you watch it, you simply go with it, watching, watching, watching. It comes in, comes in, and there comes a moment when for a single second everything stops. The breath is no more coming in and not going out yet, and then it starts going out.Watch it, go out with it. Again a moment comes when the breath has gone out -- a stop, a very subtle stop, a pause. The breath is not moving at all -- neither is it going out anymore nor is it coming in yet. Go on watching and you will find these two moments. When the breath is out, the stop comes. I'm not saying you have to stop, otherwise you will miss the whole point. It comes on its own. Between two breaths, ingoing, outgoing, there are two pauses.When the in turns into out there is a pause, when the out turns in there is a pause. You watch it.

You ask me, "IS THERE NO PLACE WHERE I CAN STOP?"

There is a place. Buddha used that method very, very profoundly, and thousands of people arrived to that pause. It is one of the most ancient and the most deep-going processes of meditation. And then you can watch in many other things, because that moment comes in many ways. One thought moves, another has not come in yet, and there is a pause between two thoughts, just a small gap. That gap... move into that gap, be in that gap, and the whole world stops. And you will find it in many ways. For example, making love to a woman you come to a peak, the energy goes on building up, building up, building up. There comes a moment from which you cannot return, the point of no return. That is the moment when you have been taken possession of by the whole. You are no more there, the ego disappears. That is the beauty of making love. There is a point from where you can come back, you can stop the whole process, but there is a point just beyond that from where you cannot come back. You have gone too far, there is no way to return, you have to go through the whole process. Between these two moments, the gap. You can turn back, if you want you can stop love-making; and the next moment you cannot turn back, there is no possibility of turning back. You have to go through the whole process of orgasm. Between these two there is a gap. Find that gap, and the whole world stops there.

Then again when you have reached to the climax and the ejaculation happens and the orgasm happens, before you start returning from the peak -- you have reached the peak and then the return -- between these two, again the gap. Find that gap, and you will have found the very secret of meditation. Tantra has used these gaps as meditation, and they are the greatest. The gap that you will find in breathing is not such an intense gap, because breathing is such an ordinary phenomenon, taken for granted. If you look between two thoughts in the mind you will find the gap. But the gap that you will find in your sexual orgasm will be most intense, because that is the most intense experience of your life -- where you again go wild, where you again explode into thousands of pieces. You fall altogether in parts, you fall apart. The ego simply becomes fragments, all disappears for a moment. You are no more there and yet something is. That 'something' is your reality, your essential reality.

You ask, "I AM TIRED, I FEEL I AM DYING ALL THE TIME. BUT WHAT CHANGES? NOTHING. EVEN IF I DIE, LIFE AND DEATH ARE PERFECT, PERFECTLY ROUND AND I GO ON RUNNING AFTER MY OWN TAIL."

That you have to stop. Running after your own tail is a very, very vicious circle. You cannot catch hold of it. Have you not watched sometimes, in winter a dog just sunning itself outside and enjoying? And then suddenly he becomes aware of the tail, and jumps to catch it. But when he jumps the tail also jumps; then he goes crazy, then he goes round and round. That's what is happening.

Don't chase your own tail. Listen to this story. There is a danger....

A dog ran across the path of an oncoming train, but he misjudged the distance. The train, racing along at a fearful clip, cut off the dog's tail.

After he licked his wounds the dog came back onto the tracks to look for his tail. Immediately another train sped by and decapitated him.

The moral of the story is: Don't lose your head while looking for a piece of tail.

Tail you will never find, but if you go on looking for the tail, you will lose your head too.

And the gaps are always there. You just have to be a little more observant, a little more alert and aware.