The first question:

Question 1

HOW BLIND I HAVE BEEN! THERE ARE SO MANY SIGNPOSTS I HAVE MISSED, AND NOW I AM WONDERING ABOUT THOSE WHO WROTE THE SIGNS. THESE DAYS I'M DISCOVERING SO MANY TRACES OF HOW REALITY TRULY IS THROUGH WORDS OF OTHERS AND ASK, "WHERE WERE THEY?" ESPECIALLY SOME OF THE ENGLISH POETS, SHAKESPEARE AND BOB DYLAN. DID THEY REALIZE WHAT THEY WERE SAYING? ARE THEY CONSCIOUSLY SHARING THEIR GLIMPSES? (T.S. ELIOT, LEWIS CARROLL)

Pradeepa, this is a complex question. A few things will have to be understood before you can have an understanding of it.

The mystic lives in the other reality, the separate reality. His abode is there. The poet only has glimpses. Only sometimes the door opens and he sees something, and the door closes. He has no understanding of what is happening, he can't figure it out himself. It remains mysterious. He has no explanation about it, from where it comes, why it comes; it is all from the blue. He's possessed by it. In some moments he's utterly possessed; in those moments he starts saying things which he will not be able to explain later on.

It is said about a great poet that once a man came to ask him the meaning of a certain poem that he had written twenty years before. The poet said, "It is too late. When I had written it, two persons knew the meaning. Now, only one knows." The man said, "Then that one must be you." And the poet said, "I am not that one. When I wrote this poetry, or, to be more true, when this poetry was written by me or this poetry wrote itself through me, God knew the meaning and I knew the meaning. Now I don't know, only God knows."

The poet is not in a state of meditation, he's not in awareness. He's vulnerable to the unknown. He has certain openings towards the unknown, and the unknown penetrates him, stirs his heart, resounds in his being, sometimes becomes a song or a painting or a dance, but the poet is utterly unaware of what is happening from where it all comes. And it comes like lightening, and then disappears. He has to write it, he has an obligation to write it. Unless he writes it, it persists inside. It goes on hammering him. A poet writes it because it becomes too heavy if he doesn't write. He unburdens himself by writing. The poetry is a catharsis. The poet feels good once he has written something that was persistently there asking for attention.

The mystic is enlightened -- not that he has lightning experiences. The other world, the unknown -- call it God, NIRVANA, or anything you like -- has become his abode. It is his reality; he lives there. It is not something from the blue: he's part of it, he vibrates with it. The separation is dropped. He knows what he is saying.

So there are two kinds of art: the ordinary art -- Shakespeare, Dylan, Carroll, Eliot -- this is subjective art. Much imagination is involved in it. It is not pure gold. Then there is another kind of art: the Upanishads, the Bible, the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, the pyramids, the statues of Buddha, the Taj Mahal, Khajuraho, Konarak; this is a totally different kind of art, objective art.

The people who created the caves of Ajanta and Ellora knew exactly what they were doing. They were not simply possessed by an idea, they were creating something very deliberately, for some deliberate results.

Picasso is painting in a kind of dream, and the dream is not even very beautiful -- it is nightmarish, it is a nightmare. He has to paint it, otherwise it will drive him crazy. Just think! If Picasso were prevented from painting, what would happen to him? He would have gone mad. He would not have been able to contain all these nightmares. When he painted these nightmares he was finished; it was a kind of self-psychoanalysis. That is the very foundation of psychoanalysis.

What happens in psychoanalysis? You bring all that is hidden in your unconsciousness to the surface, you relate it to the psychoanalyst. He listens attentively, passively, patiently. Once you have related it from all the possible angles it evaporates from your being, you are unburdened. Now psychoanalysis has found this too -- that art can be a good therapy, therapy through art. In fact, that has always been so. Picasso would have gone mad if he had not painted. That's exactly what happened to van Gogh, another great painter. He went mad, because he was so poor he could not manage to purchase canvases, colors, brushes to paint. He was given enough money from his brother so that he could live, exactly enough so that he could live, not a single pai more. And what was he doing for years? -- for four days of the week he would eat and three days he would fast and save money to paint. He went mad. He could not paint all that was clamoring, boiling in his being; he was sitting on a volcano. Lightnings were happening to him, and he could not unburden himself. They went on being accumulated inside. First he went mad, then finally he committed suicide. It was too much to live.

And that has been felt by poets, painters, sculptors down the ages -- that they feel possessed by a demon, by some unknown spirit which forces them to write. They HAVe to write; they cannot deny it, they cannot escape from it. Unless they fulfill it they will not feel free. This is subjective art.

A mystic also creates. Buddha creates by speaking; he sculpts in words. He creates parables, stories, weaves stories within stories, brings insight into the world, but this is not a kind of possession. He is perfectly at ease. He can be silent if he decides so, he will not go mad. And he knows exactly what he is doing; that's why it is called objective art. He knows what he is doing, he knows what it will do to people. He knows if this particular thing is meditated upon, this will be the consequence of it. It is utterly scientific.

If you meditate on a Buddha-statue, you will suddenly feel yourself becoming cool, silent, tranquil. You will suddenly feel a kind of balancing happening -- just by meditating on the Buddha-statue. Or, if you meditate on the Taj Mahal on a full-moon night -- it is a Sufi work of art, it was created by Sufis; it is a message of love -- if you go on a full-moon night and simply sit there, not thinking about the Taj Mahal, not saying stupid things like "How beautiful!" just meditating, absorbing, you will feel a great insight happening to you. As the night deepens, something will deepen in you. As the moon starts rising, something will start rising in you too . As the noises of the city disappear, your noisy mind will start disappearing. You can have a great meditative experience through the Taj Mahal. And it will not be only meditative -- that is the difference between the Taj Mahal and Ajanta. When meditation happens you will feel overflowing with love. In Ajanta, love will not happen, only meditation will happen. That was created by Buddhist mystics who believe in awareness and in nothing else. Sufis believe in love; meditation is part of it.

Objective art means it has been created deliberately by one who knows what he is doing, who brings something from the other dimension into this world, some form. Just watching that form, a form will arise in you, a song. Just singing that song, you will become something else, a mantra. But if you start meditating you will be surprised: many times you will find beautiful lines from the poets.

What I would like to remind you of is that sometimes you can find something in Eliot which he himself was not aware of. If you meditate, if you go deep in meditation, then even from subjective art you can find a thousand and one beautiful experiences. That may not have been so for the creator himself, because the creator was in a kind of dream-state when he created it. That's why it is always wise never to go and see the painter if you love the painting, never to go and see the poet if you love his poetry, because that may be a kind of disillusionment. You will find the poet very ordinary, because the poet is not a poet for twenty-four hours. Once in a while he is a poet, when the door opens. And he does not know how it opens and how it closes; he has no keys in his hand. He cannot open it on demand. He's utterly helpless and impotent; it happens when it happens. When it happens he shares the being of a mystic, for a moment. For a split second a drop of the unknown falls into his being, a seed sinks into his heart, then he is ordinary. Then for the remaining time he is just as ordinary, as ignorant as you -- sometimes even more so. Because that glimpse gives him a very, very egoistic idea about himself, he starts thinking about himself that he's superb, something great. That's why you will find poets, painters, very vain, egoistic people. You will not find ordinary people so egoistic as you will find the artists to be. They are creators, and they have some reason to be egoistic: look what great poetry they have done, what great paintings they have done. Those paintings are not done by them, those poems are not done by them. Something mysterious has been happening to them. They have become instrumental, they have been mediums. But a mystic is not a medium, he is the source.

Sometimes in Eliot you will find words which are as beautiful as Buddha's words or Jesus' words, but there is a qualitative difference between them: Eliot is not aware of what he is doing; Jesus is fully aware of what he is doing, of what he wants to do. Each of his statements is deliberate, conscious .

But if you start meditating, then from many sources you will be able to recognize, and then even poets start looking like mystics.

Listen to these words of Octavio Paz:

Here is a long and silent street.

I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall

And rise and walk blind,

My feet trampling the silent stones and the dry leaves.

Someone behind me also tramples stones, leaves.

If I slow down, he slows;

If I run, he runs.

I turn -- nobody.

Everything dark and doorless,

Only my steps aware of me

Are turning and turning amongst these corners

Which lead forever to the street

Where nobody waits for, nobody follows me,

Where I pursue a man

Who stumbles and rises and says when he sees me,

"Nobody".

A great insight... a great insight into the very phenomenon of the ego. If you don't look at it, it is there, it follows you like a shadow. If you look at it -- nobody.

A great king asked Bodhidharma, "I have been searching and searching only for one thing: how to become egoless, because all the great Masters have been saying only one thing down through the ages -- become egoless and you will find God, become egoless and nirvana will be attained. And I have tried hard. I have done all that can be done, that is humanly possible, but I cannot get rid of this ego. Sir, would you be kind enough," he said to Bodhidharma, "to help me?"

Bodhidharma looked at him -- the way he used to look -- those sharp, fiery eyes, penetrating. He said, "You do one thing. You have done enough, I can see it. Now you need not do any more. I will do it! Come in the morning at three o'clock, and I will finish it forever."

The king was a little puzzled: "What nonsense is this man talking about? How can he finish my ego forever? But it seems worth trying"....

When he was going away Bodhidharma again called him, while he was going down the stairs, and said, "Listen! When you come at three o'clock in the morning, don't forget to bring the ego with you! Bring it and I will kill it! Surely I am going to finish it!"

Now the king was even more puzzled: "What does he mean? Bring the ego? When I come it will be there. This man seems to be mad. Not only does he look... he is!" He could not sleep the whole night; he thought and thought. Many times he decided it was just foolish to go to this man in the dark night. And he had said, "Come alone!" -- no bodyguards, nobody is allowed. "Who knows? This man may do something nasty. He may hit me or something, because he looks so dangerous."

But he had been really working hard his whole life. It was worth trying, the risk had to be taken. At three o'clock he could not resist the temptation -- he went; afraid, frightened, but he went. The moment he reached the cave of Bodhidharma, Bodhidharma said, "Where is your ego?! And I had told you to bring it! Have you forgotten?"

The king said, "You are talking nonsense. When I am here, my ego is here. How can I leave it? That is the whole problem: I want to leave it! I can't leave it! It follows me like my shadow!"

Bodhidharma said, "Then, okay. You sit and close your eyes and try to find it, where it is. If you find, immediately tell me -- because unless you find it how can I kill it? And I will sit in front of you with this stick in my hand. The moment you have found it just give me a nod, and I will finish it forever!"

The king was frightened. It was a cold winter morning, but he started perspiring. But he tried; he went in, he looked in every nook and comer of his being, looked and looked and looked, and was surprised: he could not find the ego. Three hours passed, and his face changed. A great grace started descending on him. His vibe changed, he was feeling blessed. A benediction was around. And the sun started rising and the cave was becoming full of light.

Bodhidharma laughed and he said, "It is long enough that you have been searching. Have you not found it?"

And the king opened his eyes, fell at the feet of Bodhidharma and said, "You finished it. How did you do it?"

Bodhidharma said, "It is simple: the ego exists if you don't look at it. It exists only if you keep your back to it. The moment you turn and start looking -- nobody."

Now LISTEN to this small, beautiful poem of Octavio Paz. It says exactly that:

Here is a long and silent street.

I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall,

And rise and I walk blind,

My feet trampling the silent stones and the dry leaves.

Someone behind me also tramples stones, leaves.

If I slow down, he slows;

If I run, he runs.

I turn -- nobody.

This is half, a part, of the Buddha's story. Once the ego disappears you should not think, even for a single moment, that the self will remain. When the ego has disappeared, the self also has disappeared. That's why Buddha says, "You don't have a soul, you don't have a self. You are not there at all. Nobody exists there -- neither the ego nor the ATMAN. They are two aspects of the same illusion."

You are followed by a shadow: if you look, the shadow disappears. And the second part is: if you look still deeper, you also disappear. Not only does the object of your look disappear, the subject of your look also disappears. This is the second part of Paz's poem.

Everything dark and doorless,

Only my steps aware of me

Are turning and turning amongst these corners

Which lead forever to the street

Where nobody waits for, nobody follows me,

Where I pursue a man

Who stumbles and rises and says when he sees me,

"Nobody".

From both sides -- nobody. If the ego looks at the self -- nobody; if the self looks at the ego -- nobody. When the look happens, simply nobody. Both have disappeared, the looked upon and the onlooker.

Now this is the whole foundation of Zen Buddhism. This is the whole foundation of Sufism: FANA, all disappears.

But Octavio Paz is not a mystic. He's not a Buddha. He's as ordinary as you are. Just one thing is special about him: your doors never open, his doors sometimes -- one knows not how and why -- open. Just a wind comes and flings the door open, then another wind comes and closes it. Maybe your doors are tightly shut; his doors are not so tightly shut. A poet is between you and the mystic. A poet is a little more loose than you are, a little less frozen than you are. Sometimes he melts, sometimes he allows himself to melt.

That's what happens when you take a drug: your chemistry changes and you melt. It can happen through alcohol, it can happen through hashish. It can happen through many things: fasting, breathing, exercises; it can happen through running, swimming. The only thing is when you become a little more loose, doors open and you can see the beyond. But it can happen only for a moment. Chemistry can only allow you a few glimpses.

Maybe the poet is born with a little more LSD in his system than you are born with, that's all, with some hormonal difference. One day or other this is going to be discovered, and you will see that hormones and chemistry make much difference.

What is the difference between a man and a woman? -- the difference is of chemistry. The woman feels more than any man can ever feel. The woman loves more than any man can ever love. When the woman prays, she really is moved by it. When a man prays he is manipulating prayer, he's not moved by it; he's trying to move God through it. When a woman prays she is moved through it, she allows herself to be moved by God. The grace of a woman, the roundness of her being, is hormonal.

They say that if there is some hormonal disturbance while a child is growing in a woman's body -- if the woman has some hormonal disturbance and has more male hormones in her body, and the child that is born, if he is not a boy, if the child born is a girl -- then the girl will be a tomboy because those hormonal disturbances will make the girl a tomboy. She will not be an ordinary girl. She will not be that graceful, she will be more prone to fight.

A poet seems to have a slightly different chemistry from yours, but the difference is there. The mystic has a different consciousness from yours, not the chemistry. That's why I'm against drugs -- because they can only change your chemistry, they can never change your consciousness. And Aldous Huxley is ABSOLUTELY wrong, that drugs can give you SAMADHI; they cannot. They may give you some poetry, that is true; they may give you some glimpses of the unknown, but you remain untransformed. Those glimpses may become beautiful experiences, but experiences. The experiencer is not transformed by them. That's why I say that when you love the poetry, don't go to see the poet. You may be disillusioned. You may find a very ordinary man, very egoistic, nothing special, because those experiences have not changed his being. You can take a drug and you can feel high, and you can see the world in psychedelic colors. The whole world seems to be different, becomes a great poetry. But when you come down, all disappears, and the world seems more dusty than ever, more gray than ever. Now you miss, you hanker for more drugs.

These are two things in you: chemistry and consciousness. Chemistry can befool you; beware of it. Don't get hooked with chemistry. Unless your consciousness is new those small experiences will not make much difference. They are immaterial.