The third question:

Question 3

SOMETIMES I FEEL THAT ALL MY INNER JOURNEY IS ONLY IMAGINATION. SOMETIMES I KNOW IT IS TRUE. IS GOING INWARD JUST MOVING BACK FROM THE OUTSIDE BUSINESS, MOVING DOWN IN THE DEEPER CAVERNS OF BODY INTO THE HEARTBEAT AND DOWN INTO THE JOY OF BEING AND BEHIND THE BODY, BEHIND THE FEELINGS, SHIFTING THE ME BEHIND UNTIL IT IS JUST SOMEHOW THAT I AM WATCHED AND FELT BY THAT WHICH LIVES -- ME? YOU SAY THAT THE POWER OF IMAGINATION DELUDES. IN FRONT OF YOU I FEEL LIKE SUCH A SCHMUCK WHEN I DON'T FEEL THAT I AM GOD.

 

Padma Sambhava, those are the only two things possible: either you are a schmuck or you are a Buddha. There are no stages in between. Either you know or you don't know. You will be surprised to know that in India, the word for schmuck is BUDDHU -- it comes from Buddha. Either you are a BUDDHU, a schmuck, or you are a Buddha, awakened.

Both come from the same root. BUDDHU means the stupid, the foolish, the ignorant, fast asleep. 'Buddha' means one who has awakened, who has come out of his dreams, out of his desires, out of his ignorance, one who has come to know, one who is full of light within. The darkness has disappeared, the night is over, the sun has risen. And there are no stages in between. So never be befooled by the in-between stages.

People have created many stages. They say, "I am not a Buddha yet, but I am on the Way. I am a very, very religious person, spiritual, holy." But all your spirituality and all your holiness and all your saintlihood is nothing but a dream -- UNLESS YOU have become a Buddha. One can dream about being a saint -- there is no problem in it -- and all your learnedness is just a dream. One can dream about being learned, but all the time you remain a schmuck, you don't change.

Your so-called scholars and priests and professors and great knowers, knowledgeable people, just remain in the first category. It is better to realize that these are the only two possibilities: either you are awake or you are asleep. Seeing things like that will be of great help.

You ask, "SOMETIMES I FEEL THAT ALL MY INNER JOURNEY IS ONLY IMAGINATION."

It is... because the inner and the outer both are created by the imagination. In reality there is nothing inner and nothing outer; it is all one. You can't say it is inner, you can't say it is outer. The distinction between the inner and the outer is created by the mind. It is not real, it does not correspond to reality.

What is inner and what is outer?

You take a breath in. It was outer just a moment before, then it becomes inner, then after a second it is outer again. So what is inner and what is outer? You take food, it was out; then you digest it -- it becomes your blood, your bone, your marrow. So what is inner and what is outer? And you go to the haircutter and he cuts your hair; it was inner, now it is no more inner.

The inner is continuously becoming outer, the outer is continuously becoming inner. That's what life is, the dynamics of life: the yin goes on becoming yang, the yang goes on becoming yin. The man goes on becoming woman, the woman goes on becoming man.

You eat an apple from a tree -- it was outer, then it becomes inner. Then one day you will die and you will fall into the earth and an apple tree will arise on you. And something of you will become the apple, and your grandchildren may eat it. We are all cannibals: we are eating each other. There is no other way to be here. When you eat an apple be respectful... you may be eating your grandfather or grandmother.

Nothing is outer, nothing is inner. Inner and outer are just ways of describing the same thing. To see it is to go beyond imagination.

You say, "SOMETIMES I FEEL THAT ALL MY INNER JOURNEY IS ONLY IMAGINATION."

It is, but right now all is imagination. In fact, journey, as such, is always outer. There can't be any inner journey. How can there be inner journey? Going anywhere is always going out. When the journey ends then the inner begins. You may be coming closer to the inner, but the journey remains outer. 'Journey' means you are trying to connect yourself with the distant. The inner is not distant, it is exactly what you are. You are already connected with it, there is no need to connect, there is no path to connect you to it. That's why Zen people say that truth is a pathless reality: you don't go anywhere, then you are in. When you don't go anywhere the inner has happened.

But I can understand Padma Sambhava's difficulty too. I myself go on saying to you "Start the inner journey". I have to use words, you have to use words, and all words are inadequate. And if you go on stretching a word to its extreme, logical end, it becomes absurd. They have to be used only in a hypothetical way. They have to be used in a utilitarian sense.

When I use the words 'inner journey', I simply mean that you have looked at one aspect of the journey in your life called 'outer', now try to look at another aspect of the journey called 'inner'. YoU have been running after money, now run after meditation. You have been running after power, now run after God. Both are running. Once you start running after meditation then one day I will tell you, "Now drop meditation too. Now stop running." And when you stop running then real meditation happens.

Sitting silently,

doing nothing,

the spring comes

and the grass grows by itself.

So meditation has two meanings. That's why in India we have two words for it: DHYANA and SAMADHI. DHYANA means the temporary meditation, arbitrary meditation; SAMADHI means you have come home, now meditation is not needed. When even meditation is not needed, one is in meditation -- never before it. When one simply lives in meditation, walks in meditation, sleeps in meditation, when meditation is just one's way of being, then one has arrived.

But you have been running too much after money, power, prestige. You have become so accustomed to running. Suddenly to say "Stop!" would be too much. You have to be slowed down slowly, slowly. So we say, "Run after God." This will slow you down. Running after God, you ask "How?" and you are told. "Sit silently. close your eyes, watch your breathing. " Now what kind of running is this? In the name of running you are persuaded not to run. Watching your breathing, slowly, slowly the breathing becomes slower and slower. Sitting silently, not moving, one day you suddenly recognize the fact that all journey has disappeared. You are not going anywhere, you are. In that moment when you see you are, you simply are, it has happened. It is neither outer nor inner.

So let me say it in a paradoxical way: the inner is realized only when the inner and outer both disappear. The inner is just a beginning, to balance the outer. When both come to an absolute balance, when both negate each other, emptiness is left in your hands -- neither outer nor inner. That is not imagination.

Right now, Padma Sambhava, it is imagination. And you have to be very, very alert, because imagination is one of the sources that go on creating new desires, new fantasies, new worlds for you. It is MAYA, it is illusion.