Tantra: The Supreme Understanding - 7
CHAPTER 9
Beyond and Beyond
19 February 1975 am in Buddha Hall THE SONG CONTINUES: ONE SHOULD NOT GIVE OR TAKE, BUT REMAIN NATURAL – FOR MAHAMUDRA IS BEYOND ALL ACCEPTANCE AND REJECTION. SINCE ALAYA IS NOT BORN, NO ONE CAN OBSTRUCT OR SOIL IT; STAYING IN THE UNBORN REALM ALL APPEARANCE WILL DISSOLVE INTO DHARMATA, AND SELF-WILL AND PRIDE WILL VANISH INTO NOUGHT.
The ordinary mind wants to take more and more from the world; from everywhere, from every direction and dimension. The ordinary mind is a great taker, it is a beggar, and the begging is such that it cannot be satisfied – it is infinite. The more you get, the more the longing arises; the more you have, the more you desire. It becomes an obsessive hunger. There exists no need for it in your being, but you are obsessed, and you become more and more miserable because nothing satisfies. Nothing can satisfy the mind which is constantly asking for more. The ”more” is feverish, it is not healthy, and there is no end to it.
The ordinary mind goes on eating, in a metaphorical sense, not only things but persons also. The husband would like to possess the wife so deeply and so absolutely that it is a sort of eating her; he would like to eat and digest her so she becomes part of him. The ordinary mind is cannibalistic. The wife wants the same: to absorb the husband so totally that nothing is left behind. They kill each other. Friends do the same; parents to children, children to parents do the same; all relationship of the ordinary mind is of absorbing the other completely. It is a sort of eating. And then there is the extraordinary mind, just the opposite to the ordinary mind. And because of the ordinary mind, the extraordinary mind has come into existence. Religions teach about it. They say, ”Give, share, donate!” All the religions teach basically that you should not take, rather on the contrary, you should give. Charity is preached. This is preached to create an extraordinary mind.
The ordinary mind will always be in misery, because the longing for the ”more” cannot be fulfilled; you will find him always depressed, sad. The extraordinary mind the religions have been cultivating – you will find him always happy, a certain cheerfulness is there because he is not asking for more; on the contrary, he goes on giving – but deep down he is still the ordinary mind.
The cheerfulness cannot be of the deepest being, it can only be of the surface. He has totally turned around and become just the reverse of the ordinary. He is standing on his head, he is in a SHIRSHASANA, but he remains the same. Now a new desire arises to give more and more and more; again there is no end to it. He will be cheerful, but deep down in his cheerfulness you can detect a certain quality of sadness. You will always find that quality of sadness in religious people. Cheerful, of course, because they give, but sad because they cannot give more; cheerful because they share, but sad because it is not enough. Nothing will be enough.
So there are two types of miseries: the ordinary misery; you can find those miserable people all around, everywhere. The whole earth is filled with them because they ask for more and it cannot be fulfilled. Then there is another misery which has a face of cheerfulness; you will find in the priests, monks, in the monasteries, the ashrams, people who seem to be always smiling, but their smile carries a certain sadness behind it. If you observe deeply you will find they are also miserable – because you cannot give infinitely, you don’t have it! These are the two types of people easily met. This religious man is cultivated by Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism. It is better than the ordinary mind but cannot be the final word about consciousness. It is good to be miserable in a religious way, better to be miserable like an emperor, not like a beggar.
A very rich man was dying and he had called me to be near him when he died, so I was there. At the last moment he opened his eyes and he told his son – that that had been always in his mind, he had told me many times: he was worried about his son because he was a spendthrift and he loved material things, and this old man was a religious man. The last word he said to the son was, ”Listen: money is not everything and you cannot buy everything with money. There are things which are beyond money, and money alone cannot make anybody happy.”
The son listened and said, ”You may be right, but with money a person can choose the sadness of his own liking” – it may not purchase happiness but you can choose the sadness of your own liking, you can be miserable in your own way.
A poor man has to be miserable through no choice; a rich man can be miserable through his own choice – that’s the only difference. He chooses his own misery, there is a certain freedom. The poor man’s misery simply happens to him like a fate, a destiny; he has no choice. The religious man has chosen his misery, that is why he is a little cheerful; and the nonreligious man is suffering his misery because he has not chosen it. Both live in the same world of the ”more,” but the religious man lives like an emperor, sharing, giving, charity. Buddhism, Jainism and Tao, they have created a third type of mind which is neither ordinary nor extraordinary; in fact, which is not a mind at all. To give it a name it will be good to call it a no-mind. So try to understand the classification. Ordinary mind, extraordinary mind – just the opposite of it, but still in the same dimension of more – then no-mind, which Buddhism, Jainism, Tao have created. What is this no-mind? – the third approach towards reality.
Buddhism and Jainism don’t preach charity, they preach indifference. They don’t say, ”Give!” because giving is part of taking, the same circle. In taking you take from somebody, in giving you give to somebody, but it is the same circle. Dimensions don’t change, only direction changes. Buddhism preaches to be indifferent, to be nonpossessive. The emphasis is on nonpossession, not on giving. You should not possess, that’s all. You should not try to possess things or persons; you simply drop out of the world of possessions. There is no question of taking or giving, because both belong to the world of possessions. You can give only that which you possess; how can you give that which you don’t possess? You can give only that which you have acquired before; you can give only that which you have taken before – otherwise, how can you give it? You come in the world without anything, with no possessions; you go out of the world without any possessions.
In the world you can be on these two sides: either on the side of those who long for more and more, to take more and more and absorb more and more, and go on fattening themselves; and then there is another side who go on giving and giving more and more, and become thinner and thinner and thinner. Buddha says you should not possess; you should not choose either side. You simply be in the state of nonpossession.
This man, this third type of man, whom I call the man of no-mind, will not be as happy, cheerful as the extraordinary man. He will be more silent, he will be more quiet; he will have a deep contentment – but not cheerfulness. You will not even find a smile on his face; you will not find a single statue of Buddha smiling or of Mahavira smiling, no. They are not cheerful, they are not happy. They are not miserable, of course; they are not happy – they have dropped out of the world of misery and happiness. They are simply at rest, indifferent to the things and the world of things; nonpossessing, they are aloof, detached. This is what ANASHAKTI is: detachment, indifference. This man will have a certain quality of silence around him – you can feel that silence.
But Tilopa goes beyond all the three; Tilopa goes beyond all three, and now it is difficult to classify him. Ordinary mind, asking for more; extraordinary mind, trying to give more; no-mind, indifferent, unattached, neither giving nor taking – then what to call Tilopa’s mind? Tilopa is of the fourth type, and the fourth is the last and the highest, there is no beyond to it. It is not even a no-mind, it is not a mind at all – because in the no-mind also, negatively the mind is present. The emphasis is still on being indifferent to the things and the world of things, but your focus is on things: Remain indifferent, unattached! You are not possessing things, but you have to be alert not to possess; you have to remain detached, you have to move very alert so you don’t possess anything. Make a clear point of it: the emphasis is still on things – be indifferent to the world!
Tilopa says the emphasis should be on your own self, not on the things. Rest in yourself; don’t be even indifferent to the world, because that indifference still is a very subtle bridge with the world. The focus should not be on the other. Turn your lives completely inwards. You don’t bother about the world, not even to be indifferent to it. You neither ask for more, you neither try to give more, nor are you indifferent to the world either... as if the world has simply disappeared. You are selfcentered, sitting inside, doing nothing. Your whole focus has turned, taken a total about-turn... as if the world has completely disappeared. There is nothing to give, nothing to take, nothing to be indifferent about. Only you are. You live in your consciousness and that is your only world. Nothing else exists.
This is the state of beyond mind AND beyond no-mind. This is the suprememost state of understanding. Nothing is beyond it. And I would like to tell you: never be satisfied unless you attain this. Why? – because man is miserable, the ordinary man. He asks for more and it can never be satisfied, so continuously the misery is there, and the misery goes on becoming more and more and more.
The man of extraordinary mind that the religions teach, is cheerful, but deep down sad. Even the very cheerfulness has an undercurrent of sadness. It seems as he is trying to smile, the smile is not coming to him; it seems he is posing, as if some photographers are there and he is posing a certain gesture which doesn’t exist in fact. Better than the first, at least you can smile; the smile is not very deep but at least it is there. But this will not last for long. Soon, whatsoever you can give will be exhausted; then, then the smiling cheerfulness will disappear. You would like to give more; then you will be in the same plight of the first, the ordinary man.
It will take a little longer for the second man to understand and realize the misery, but the misery will come. The cheerfulness that you practice in the mosques, temples, monasteries, cannot go very deep and it cannot become a permanent state of affairs. It cannot be eternal. You will lose it. The very nature of it is such that it can be only momentary. Why can it be only momentary? – because a point will come, is bound to come, when you cannot give because you don’t have. That’s why people of these two minds settle on a compromise. The ordinary mind and the extraordinary mind are the same in their quality; they settle for a compromise. And the compromise you will find everywhere. First a man goes on taking things and then he starts donating. Or he will earn a hundred rupees and donate ten percent of it, because that is the only possible way. If you donate one hundred rupees completely, then you don’t have to donate any more. Go on taking things and then a part of it distribute. The Mohammedans say one-fifth of your income you should donate; be charitable with one-fifth of your income. Why? – because this is a compromise; otherwise, you won’t have anything to donate. So first accumulate and then distribute. Accumulate to distribute, be rich so that you can be charitable, exploit so that you can help. This is absurd! But this is the only possible way: the bridge between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
And even the ordinary mind goes on thinking and believing that when he has much he will donate, he will help people. And of course he also does it, when he has enough he gives – a donation to a hospital, a donation to a cancer research center, a donation to a library or a college. First he exploits and then he donates; first he robs you and then he helps you.
Helpers and robbers are not different; in fact they are the same persons: with the right hand they rob and with the left hand they help; they belong to the same dimension of affairs.
The third man, the man of no-mind, is in a better situation than these first two. His silence can be longer, but he is not blissful. He doesn’t feel blissful – he is not unhappy, he is not miserable, but his state is of the nature of negativity. He is like a man who is not ill because doctors cannot find anything wrong with him, and he is not healthy because he doesn’t feel any well-being. He is not ill and he is not healthy – he is just in the middle. He is not miserable, he is not happy – he is simply indifferent. And indifference may give you silence, but silence is not enough. It is good, it is beautiful, but you cannot be content with it; sooner or later you will be bored with it. That is what happens if you go to the hills. You were too bored with the city-life – Bombay, London, New York. You were bored – the noise, the traffic, and the whole madness going on and on – you escaped to the Himalayas. But after a few days – three, four, five, at the most seven – you start feeling bored with the silence. The hills are silent, the trees are silent, the valley is silent – no excitement. You start longing for the city-life: the club, the movie house, the friends.
Silence is not enough, because silence has the nature of death, not the nature of life. It is good as a holiday, it is good as a picnic, it is good to get out of your too many concerns of life for a few days, a few moments, and be silent; you will enjoy it, but you cannot enjoy it forever. Soon you will get fed up with it; soon you will feel this is not enough. This is not nourishing. A silence will protect you from misery and happiness, from excitements, but there is no nourishment in it. It is a negative state.
The fourth state that Tilopa is indicating – that which cannot be said and which he is trying to say for Naropa and his trust and his love and his faith – is a blissful state, silent and blissful. It has a positivity in it. It is not simply silence. It has not come through indifference to life, rather on the contrary, it has come through the deepest experience of one’s own being. It has not been driven by renouncing; it has bloomed by being loose and natural. Subtle are the differences. But if you try to understand and meditate on these distinctions, your whole life-path will be clear, and then you can travel very easily.
Never be satisfied before the fourth state, because even if you become satisfied, sooner or later the discontentment will arise. Unless you attain SAT-CHIT-ANAND, absolute truth, absolute consciousness, and absolute blissfulness, the home has not been reached yet, you are still traveling on the path. Okay, sometimes you rest by the side of the path, but don’t make it a home. The journey has to continue; you have to get up again and you have to move.
From the first state of mind move to the second, from the second move to the third, from the third move to the beyond. If you are in the first state of mind, as ninety-nine percent of people are, then Jewish thinking, Islam, Christianity, will be helpful. They will bring you out of the ordinary trap of misery – good, but you are still on the path and don’t deceive yourself that you have reached. Now you have to get beyond this, beyond this cheerfulness which has a sadness in it, beyond this taking and giving both, beyond charity. Who are you to give to? What have you got to give? Who are you to help? You have not helped even yourself; how can you help others? Your own light is not burning and you are trying to burn others’ lights? You may blow them off, you may put them off – your own inner being is dark. You cannot help, you cannot give, you have nothing to give.
Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Lao Tzu, Mahavira and Siddhartha Gautam can help you out of it, but Tilopa says don’t be satisfied even with that indifference, silence, a detached standing, aloofness, because it is still not a happening, still you are concerned with the world.
Tilopa can help you beyond that. He can bring you to your innermost center of being. He can help you center: rooted in yourself, unconcerned with the world – not even unconcern is there. Everything has dissolved; only you remain in your crystal purity, only you remain in your absolute innocence – as if the world has not arisen, was not there ever. You come to the point in this fourth state of consciousness, to the point where you were not born, to the absolute source of being. Even the first step has not been taken in the world, or, you have come to the last, the last step has been taken. This is what Zen people call attaining the original face. Zen masters say to the disciples, ”Go, and find your face you had before you were born”; or, ”Go, and find the face you will have when you are dead.” Either when the world was not, or when the world has disappeared, you attain to your original purity. That is what nature is.
Now try to understand Tilopa: ONE SHOULD NOT GIVE OR TAKE, BUT REMAIN NATURAL – FOR MAHAMUDRA IS BEYOND ALL ACCEPTANCE AND REJECTION.
ONE SHOULD NOT GIVE OR TAKE, because when you give you have moved out of yourself, when you take you have moved out of yourself. Both are distractions, both lead you to the other; you get mixed, your energy has flown outwards. Whether you give or take is irrelevant – the other has come into being; your eyes are focused on the other, and when the eyes are focused on the other you forget yourself. This is what has happened to you all. You don’t remember yourself because your eyes have become focused, paralyzed in fact on the other. Whatsoever you do, you do it for the other; whatsoever you are, you are for the other.
Even if you escape from the world, your mind goes on, continuing: ”What are people thinking about me?” Even if you escape to the Himalayas, sitting there you will think, ”Now people must be thinking that I have become a great sage, renounced the world; in the newspapers there must be talk about me.” And you will wait for some lonely traveler, wanderer, to reach and give you news what is happening in the world about YOU.
You don’t have your own face, you have only opinions of others about you. Somebody says you are beautiful, and you start thinking you are beautiful. Somebody says you are ugly, and you feel hurt and you carry a wound that somebody has said ”ugly” – you have become ugly. You are just an accumulation of the opinions of others, you don’t know who you are. You know only what others think you are. And this is strange, because those others who think who you are, don’t know themselves – they know themselves through you. This is a beautiful game: I know myself through you, you know yourself through me, and we both don’t know who we are.
The other has become too important, and your whole energy has become obsessed with the other – always thinking of others, always either taking something from them or giving something to them.
Tilopa says one should not give or take. What is he saying? Is he saying one should not share? No. If you take it in that way you will misunderstand him. He is saying one should not be concerned with taking or giving; if you can give naturally, beautiful, but then there is nothing in the mind, no accumulation that you have given something. That is the difference between giving and sharing.
A giver knows that he has given and he would like you to recognize it, give him a receipt that ”Yes, you have given me.” You should thank him, you should feel grateful that he has given to you. This is not a gift; this is again a bargain. In fact he would like you to give him something in return. Even if it is your gratefulness, that’s okay, but something he would like; it is a bargain, he gives to get. Tilopa is not saying don’t share. He is saying don’t be concerned with taking or giving. If you have, and it happens naturally that you feel like giving, give. But it should be a sharing, a gift. This is the difference between a gift and giving.
A gift is not a bargain; nothing is expected, absolutely nothing; not even a recognition, not even a nod of the head of appreciation – no, nothing is expected. If you don’t mention it, there will be no scar in the person who has given you a gift. In fact, if you mention it he will feel a little embarrassed because that was never expected. On the contrary, he feels grateful towards you that you accepted his gift. You could have rejected; the possibility is there. You could have said no, but how nice of you that you didn’t say no. You accepted it – that’s enough. He feels grateful towards you. A man who gives you a gift always feels grateful that you accepted. You could have rejected it. That’s enough.
Tilopa is not saying don’t give, and he is not saying don’t take, because life cannot exist without giving and taking. Even Tilopa has to breathe, even Tilopa has to beg for his food, even Tilopa has to go to the river to drink water. Tilopa is thirsty, he needs water; Tilopa is hungry, he needs food; Tilopa feels suffocated in a closed room, he comes out and breathes deeply. He is taking life every moment – you cannot exist without taking. People have tried, but those are not natural people, they are the suprememost egoists. Egoists always try to be independent of everything. Egoists always try as if they don’t need anything from anybody. This is foolish, absurd! Tilopa cannot do such a thing. He is a very very natural man, you cannot find a more natural man than Tilopa. And if you understand nature you will be surprised to find, to discover a very deep basic fact, and that fact is this: no one is dependent, no one is independent – everyone is interdependent. Nobody can claim, ”I am independent.” This is foolish! You cannot exist for a single moment in your independence. And nobody is absolutely dependent.
These two polarities don’t exist. One who looks dependent is also independent, and one who looks independent is also dependent. Life is an interdependence, it is a mutual sharing. Even the emperor depends on his slaves; and even the slaves are not dependent on the emperor – at least they can commit suicide; that much independence they have.
Absolutes don’t exist here. Life exists in relativity. Of course, Tilopa knows that. He prescribes the natural way – how can he not know it? He knows it; life is a give and take. You share, but you should not be concerned about it, you should not think about it – you should allow it to happen. Allowing it to happen is totally different. Then you neither ask for more than you can get, nor you ask to give more than you can give; you simply give what naturally can be given, you simply take what naturally can be taken. You don’t feel obliged to anybody and you don’t make anybody feel obliged to you. You simply know that life is interdependent. We exist mutually, we are members of each other. Consciousness is a vast ocean and nobody is an island. We meet and merge with each other. There are no boundaries ... all boundaries are false. That Tilopa knows – then what does he say?
ONE SHOULD NOT GIVE OR TAKE, BUT REMAIN NATURAL.... The moment you think you have taken you have become unnatural. Taking is okay, but THINKING that you have taken you become unnatural. Giving is beautiful, but the moment you think that you have given, it becomes ugly, you become unnatural. You simply give because you cannot help it; you have, so you have to give. You simply take because you cannot help it; you are part of the whole. But no unnatural ego is created through taking or through giving – that is the point to be understood. You neither accumulate, nor do you renounce – you simply remain natural.
If things come on your way, you enjoy. If you have more, and the more always becomes a burden, you share. It is just a deep balancing, you simply remain natural. No holding and no renouncing; no possessiveness, no nonpossessiveness. Look at the animals or the birds: no taking, no giving. Everybody enjoys out of the whole, out of the whole everybody shares, in the whole everybody shares. Birds and trees and animals, they exist naturally. Man is the only unnatural animal – that’s why religion is needed.
Animals don’t need any religion, birds don’t need any religion – because they are not unnatural. Only man needs religion. And the more man becomes unnatural, the more religion is needed. So remember this: whenever a society becomes more and more unnatural, technological, more religion will be needed.
People come and ask me why in America there is so much search about religion, so much turmoil, seeking.... Because America is the most unnatural country today, the most technological, technical. A technocracy has come into existence which has made everything unnatural. Your inner being thirsts for freedom from technology. Your inner being thirsts for being natural, and your whole society has become unnatural; more cultured, more civilized – more unnatural. When a society becomes too cultured then comes religion to balance it. It is a subtle balancing. A natural society doesn’t need religion.
Says Lao Tzu, ”I have heard from the ancients that there was a time when people were natural, there was no religion. When people were natural they never thought about heaven and hell. When people were natural they never thought about moral precepts. When people were natural there was no code, no law.” Lao Tzu says because of the law people have become criminals, and because of morality people have become immoral, and because of too much culture.... And China has known too much culture; no other country has known that much culture.
Confucius has made an absolute discipline of how to culture a man – three thousand three hundred rules to discipline. Suddenly Lao Tzu came into being to balance, because this Confucius will kill the whole society – three thousand three hundred rules? This is too much. You will culture the man so much that the man will disappear completely. He will not be a man at all! Lao Tzu erupts and Lao Tzu throws all the rules to the dust, and he says the only golden rule is to have no rules. This is a balancing. Lao Tzu is religion, Confucius is culture.
Religion is needed like a medicine, it is medicinal. You are ill, you need medicine; the more ill, of course, the more medicine. A society becomes ill when the natural is lost. A man becomes ill when the natural is forgotten. And Tilopa is all for the natural and the loose. And remember always the loose WITH the natural – because you can try to be natural so hard that the very effort can become unnatural. That’s how fads are created. I have come across many people, faddists, who have made something absolutely unnatural out of a natural teaching. For example, it is good to have organic food; nothing is wrong in it, but if you become too concerned, and you become so minutely concerned that every moment you are thinking of organic food, and nothing inorganic should be allowed in the body, then you have overdone it.
I know people who believe in natural therapies, naturotherapy, and they have become so unnatural through their naturotherapy that you cannot believe how it happens. It happens. If it becomes a straining on the mind, then it has become already unnatural. The word ”loose” has to be continuously remembered, otherwise you can become faddists, you can become maniacs; and then you can take one part of it and you can strain so much that even the natural turns into the unnatural.
Loose and natural is Tilopa, and that is his whole teaching. He cannot say you should not give and you should not take, but he does say it; then he must mean something else.
ONE SHOULD NOT GIVE OR TAKE BUT REMAIN NATURAL.... There is hidden the meaning: remaining natural. And if, remaining natural, it happens that you give – beautiful! If, remaining natural, somebody gives something to you and you take, natural. But don’t make out of it a profession. Don’t make out of it an anxiety. ... FOR MAHAMUDRA IS BEYOND ALL ACCEPTANCE AND REJECTION.
Lao Tzu teaches acceptance. And Tilopa teaches something beyond rejection and acceptance both. Tilopa is really one of the greatest masters.
You reject something and you become unnatural – that we can understand. You have anger inside and you reject it because of the moral teachings, and because of difficulties that anger brings you in – conflicts, violence. And to live with anger is not easy, because if you want to live with anger you cannot live with anybody else. It creates trouble, and then the moral teachers are there who are always ready to help you and they say, ”Suppress it, throw it, don’t be angry, reject it!” You start rejecting.
The moment you reject you start becoming unnatural, because whatsoever you have, nature has given it to you – who are you to reject it? A part of the mind playing the role of the master with another part of the mind? – and both are the parts of the same. It is not possible. You can go on playing the game. And the part who is the anger does not bother about your other part who is trying to suppress it, because when the moment comes it erupts. So there is no trouble for the part which is anger, the part which is sex, the part which is greed. You go on fighting, wasting, putting yourself together in millions of ways and always remaining divided, in conflict, fragmentary.
Once you reject, you become unnatural. Don’t reject. Of course, immediately the acceptance comes in: if you don’t reject then accept. This is subtle, delicate. Tilopa says even in acceptance there is a rejection, because when you say, ”Yes I accept,” deep down you have rejected already; otherwise why do you say, ”I accept”? What is the need to say that you accept? Acceptance is meaningful only if there is rejection; otherwise it is meaningless.
People come to me and they say, ”Yes, we accept you.” I see their faces, what they are saying; not knowing what they are doing, they have already rejected me. They are forcing their minds to accept me and a certain part of the mind is rejecting. Even when they say yes, there is a no; that very yes carries the no in it. The yes is just a superficial garb, a decoration. Inside I can see their no alive and kicking, and they say, ”We accept” – you have already rejected.
If there is no rejection how can you accept, how can you say, ”I accept”? If there is no fight how can you say, ”I surrender”? If you can see this point then an acceptance happens which is beyond both rejection and acceptance. Then surrender happens which is beyond both fight and surrender – then it is total...
FOR MAHAMUDRA IS BEYOND ALL ACCEPTANCE AND REJECTION. And when you remain simply natural, neither rejecting nor accepting, neither fighting nor surrendering, neither saying no nor saying yes, but allowing things, whatsoever happens happens, you have no choice of your own. Whatsoever happens you simply note it down that it has happened; you don’t try to change anything, you don’t try to modify anything. You are not concerned with improving yourself, you simply remain whatsoever you are. Very, very arduous for the mind, because the mind is a great improver.
The mind always says, ”You can reach higher. You can become great. You can polish here and there and you can become pure gold. Improve, transform, transmute, transfigure yourself!” The mind goes on again and again and again saying, ”More is possible, more is still possible, do it!” Then rejection comes. And when you reject part of yourself you will be in deep trouble, because that part is yours, that part is organically yours – you cannot throw it away. You can cut the body but you cannot cut the being, because being remains the whole. How can you cut the being? There is no sword that can cut the being.
If your eyes go against you, you can throw them away; if your hand commits a crime you can cut it off; if your legs lead you to sin, you can cut them off – because the body is not you, it is already separate, you can cut it – but how will you cut your consciousness? How will you cut your innermost being? It is not substantial, you cannot cut it. It is like emptiness – how can you cut emptiness? Your sword will go through it, it will remain undivided. If you try too much, your sword may break, but the emptiness will remain undivided; you cannot cut it. Your innermost being is of the nature of emptiness. It is a no-self, it is nonsubstantial. It is, but it is not matter. You cannot cut it, there is no possibility. Don’t reject – but immediately the mind says, ”Then okay, we accept.” The mind never leaves you alone. The mind follows you like a shadow; wherever you go the mind says, ”Okay, I am with you just a help, a helper. Whenever you are in need I will give you help. Don’t reject – of course, right! Tilopa is right: accept!” And if you listen to this mind, again you are in the same trap. Rejection and acceptance are both aspects of the same coin.
Says Tilopa: ... FOR MAHAMUDRA IS BEYOND ALL ACCEPTANCE AND REJECTION. You don’t accept, you don’t reject. There is nothing to do in fact. You are not asked to do anything. You are simply asked to be loose and natural; be yourself and let things happen. The whole world is going on without you: the rivers go to the sea, the stars move, the sun rises in the morning, the seasons follow each other, the trees grow and bloom and disappear, and the whole is going without you – can’t you leave yourself loose and natural and move with the whole? This is sannyas for me. People come to me and they ask, ”Give us definite discipline. You simply give us sannyas and you never talk about discipline. What do you expect us to do?”
I don’t expect anything. I want you to be loose and natural. You just be yourself and let things happen – whatsoever happens, WHATSOEVER unconditionally: good and bad, misery and happiness, life and death – whatsoever happens let it happen. Just don’t you come in the way. You relax. The whole existence goes on, and goes on so perfectly well; why are you worried about yourself? There is no need to improve, there is NO need to change. You simply remain loose and natural and improvement happens of its own accord, and changes follow, and you will be transfigured completely – but not by you. If you are trying, you are doing the same thing as if somebody is pulling himself by the strings of his own shoes... pulling up. Foolish! Don’t try it. It is just like a dog catching his own tail. On a winter morning when the sun has arisen you can find many dogs doing that. They are sitting silently, enjoying, and then suddenly they see their tail by the side – looks tempting. And how can they know, poor dogs, that the tail belongs to them? The same is your plight; on the same boat you are also traveling: the temptation becomes too much and the tail looks delicious, it can be eaten! The dog tries, first very slowly and silently so the tail is not disturbed, but whatsoever he does, the tail simply moves itself farther and farther. Then a hectic activity starts, then the dog becomes alert: ”What does this tail think about herself?” It becomes a challenge. Now he jumps, but the more he jumps, the more the tail jumps. A dog can go crazy.
And this is all that spiritual seekers are doing to themselves. Catching their own tails on a winter morning when everything is beautiful, unnecessarily bothering with their tails. Let it rest! Be natural and loose – and who can catch his own tail? You jump; the tail jumps with you and then you feel frustrated. And then you come to me and say, ”The KUNDALINI is not rising.” What can I do? You are chasing your own tail and missing the beautiful morning meanwhile. Could you have rested with your tail silently? Many flies were coming of their own accord and there would have been a good breakfast. But your catching the tail – the flies are also scared and the very possibility of a good breakfast.... You simply wait! – just knowing that things cannot be improved; they are already the best they can be. You have just to enjoy. Everything is ready for the celebration, nothing is lacking. Don’t get caught in absurd activities – and spiritual improvement is one of the most absurd activities. ... REMAIN NATURAL – FOR MAHAMUDRA IS BEYOND ALL ACCEPTANCE AND REJECTION. SINCE ALAYA IS NOT BORN....
ALAYA is a Buddhist term, it means the abode, the inner abode, the inner emptiness, the inner sky. SINCE ALAYA IS NOT BORN NO ONE CAN OBSTRUCT OR SOIL IT. Don’t be worried. Since your innermost being is never born, it cannot die; since it is never born nobody can soil it or obstruct it. It is deathless. And since the whole has given you life, since life comes from the whole, how can the part improve it? From the source comes everything, let the source supply it – and the source is eternal. You unnecessarily get in the way and you start pushing the river which was already flowing towards the sea.... NO ONE CAN OBSTRUCT OR SOIL IT. Your inner purity is absolute! You cannot soil it. This is the tantra essence. All the religions say that you have to attain it – tantra says it is already attained. All the religions say you have to work hard for it – tantra says because of your hard activity you are missing it. Please, relax a little; just by relaxation you attain the nonattainable. ... NO ONE CAN OBSTRUCT OR SOIL IT.
You may have done millions of things – don’t be worried about karmas, because no act of yours can soil, make your inner being impure. This is the base of the myth of Jesus’ virgin birth. It is not that Jesus’ mother Mary was a virgin; it is a tantra attitude. Jesus came across many tantrikas on his travels in India – and he understood the fact that virginity cannot be destroyed, and every child is born out of a virgin. Christian theologians have been very much worried how to prove that Jesus was born out of a virgin. There is no need! Every child is always born out of a virgin, because the virginity cannot be soiled.
How can you soil the virginity? Just two beings, man and wife, or two lovers, moving into a deep sexual orgasm – how can you soil the virginity by that? The innermost being remains a witness, it is not a part of it. The bodies meet, the energies meet, the mind meets, and there is a blissful moment – out of it. But the innermost being remains a witness – out of it. That virginity cannot be soiled. So they are worried in the West how to prove that Jesus is born out of a virgin. And I tell you that not even a single child has ever been born without a virgin mother. All children are born out of virginity. Every moment, whatsoever you do, YOU remain out of it. No action is a scar on you, cannot be. And once you relax and see this, then you are not worried what to do and what not to do. Then you let things have their own course. Then you simply float like a white cloud, not moving anywhere, simply enjoying the movement. The very wandering is beautiful.
... NO ONE CAN OBSTRUCT OR SOIL IT; STAYING IN THE UNBORN REALM ALL APPEARANCE WILL DISSOLVE INTO THE DHARMATA.... DHARMATA means that everything has its own elementary nature. If you remain in your inner abode everything, by and by, will dissolve in its own natural element. You are the disturber. If you remain inside your being, in the alaya, in the inner sky, in that absolute purity, just like the sky, clouds come and go, no trace is left. Actions come and go, thoughts come and go, many things happen, but inside, deep down, nothing happens. There you simply ARE. Only existence is there. No actions reach, no thoughts reach.
If you remain loose and natural in that inner abode, by and by, you will see all elements move into their own nature. The body is made of five elements. The earth, by and by, will move into the earth, the air into the air, the fire into the fire. That is what happens when you die: every element moves to its own rest. Dharmata means the elementary nature of everything – everything moves to its own abode. You move to your own abode and then everything moves to its own; then there is no disturbance.
There are two ways to live and two ways to die. One way is to live like everybody is living: getting mixed up with everything, forgetting completely the inner sky. Then there is another way of living: resting within and allowing the elementary forces to have their own way. When the body feels hunger it will move and seek food.
A man who is enlightened remains inside his abode. The body feels the hunger, he watches. The body starts moving to feed hunger, he watches. The body finds the food, he watches. The body starts eating, he watches. The body absorbs, feels satiated, he watches. He goes on watching – he is no more an actor. He is not doing anything; he is not a doer. The body feels thirst, he watches. The body stands and moves; these are elementary forces working on their own. You unnecessarily say, ”I am thirsty” – you are not! You get mixed up. The BODY is thirsty and the body will find its own course. It will move wherever the water is.
If you remain inside, you will see everything happens by itself. Even trees, with no ego and no mind, find their water sources; the roots will go and seek the sources, sometimes even hundreds of feet they will travel to find a source of water. And this has been one of the most amazing things for botanists because they cannot understand how it happens. A tree is there. Towards the north one hundred feet away, there is a water source, a little spring hidden inside the earth. How does the tree know that the roots have to move towards the north, not to the south? And it is one hundred feet away, so even a guess is not possible; and the tree has no mind of its own, no ego. But the elemental forces by themselves... the tree starts growing roots towards the north, and one day it reaches the water source.
The tree reaches towards the sky.... In African jungles trees grow very high; they have to because the forest is so dense that if the trees don’t grow very high they will not be able to reach to the sun and the light and the air. So they grow higher and higher and higher, they seek their way. Even trees can find their water source – why are you worried?
That’s why Jesus says, ”Look, consider the lilies in the field: they toil not.” They don’t do anything, but everything happens. When you sit inside your abode, your elemental forces will start functioning in their crystal purity. You don’t come in. The body feels hunger, the body itself moves – and it is so beautiful to see the body moving itself. It is really one of the most wonderful experiences to see one’s own body moving itself and finding the source of water or food. There is a thirst for love and the body moves itself. You go on sitting inside your abode, then suddenly you see actions don’t belong to you: you are not a doer, you are simply a watcher. Realizing this, you have attained the nonattainable. Realizing this, you have realized all that can be realized. ... STAYING IN THE UNBORN REALM ALL APPEARANCE WILL DISSOLVE INTO DHARMATA, AND SELF-WILL AND PRIDE WILL VANISH INTO NOUGHT.
And when you see that things are happening by themselves, then how can you gather an ego, pride about it? How can you say ”I” when hunger has its own way, fulfills itself, becomes satiety; when life has its own way, fulfills itself, reaches death and rest? Who are you to say, ”I am”? The pride, the self, the self-will, all dissolve. Then you don’t do anything, then you don’t will anything – you simply sit in your innermost being and the grass grows by itself.... Everything happens by itself.
Difficult to understand, this, because you have been brought up, conditioned, that you have to do, that you have to be a doer, constantly alert and moving and fighting. You have been brought up in a milieu which says that you have to fight for your survival otherwise you will be lost, otherwise you will achieve nothing. You have been brought up with the poison of ambition in you. And in the West particularly, a very nonsensical word ”willpower” exists. This is simply absurd. There is nothing like willpower – a fantasy, a dream. There is no need for any will. Things are happening by themselves, it is their nature.
It happened: The master of Lin Chi died. The master was a well known man, but Lin Chi was even more well known than the master, because the master was a silent man, and through Lin Chi he had become very famous, in fact. Then the master died – and Lin Chi was also known to be enlightened – and a crowd of thousands gathered to pay their respects and bid him the last farewell. And they saw Lin Chi crying and weeping and tears flowing down like a small child whose mother has died. People could not believe it because they thought that he had attained – and he was crying like a small child. This is okay when a person is ignorant, but when a person is awakened, and he himself has been teaching that the innermost nature is immortal, eternal, it never dies... so why now?
A few who were very very intimate to Lin Chi, they came and told him, ”It is not good, and what will people think about you? – already there is a rumor: people are thinking that they were wrong in thinking that you have attained. Your whole prestige is at stake. You stop crying! And a man like you need not cry.”
Lin Chi said, ”But what can I do? Tears are coming! It is their dharmata. And who am I to stop them? I neither reject nor accept; I remain inside myself. Now tears are flowing, nothing can be done. If the prestige is at stake, let it be. If the people think I am not enlightened, that is their own business. But what can I do? I have left the doer long ago, there is no longer any doer. It is simply happening. These eyes are crying and weeping on their own accord, because they will not be able to see the master again – and it was a nourishment to them, they lived on that food. I know very well that the soul is eternal, nobody ever dies, but how to teach these eyes? What to tell them? They don’t listen, they don’t have any ears. How to teach these eyes not to weep, not to cry, that life is eternal? And who am I? It is their business. If they feel like crying, they are crying.”
Remaining natural and loose means this: things happen, you are not the doer. Neither accepting nor rejecting, self-will dissolves. The very concept of willpower becomes empty and impotent; it simply withers away and pride vanishes into nothingness
Difficult to understand an enlightened person. No concepts will be helpful. What will you think about Lin Chi? He says, ”I know – but the eyes are crying; let them cry, they will feel relaxed. And they will not be able to see this man again; that body is to be burned soon. They were nourished by him, and they knew no beauty except in this man, and they knew no grace. They have lived too long nursing on this man’s form and the body. Now, of course, they feel thirsty, hungry; now, of course, they feel that the very ground is disappearing underneath them – they are crying!”
A natural man simply sits inside and allows things to happen. He does not ”do.” And Tilopa says only then does Mahamudra appear; the final, the utterly final orgasm with the existence. Then you are separate no more. Then your inner sky has become one with the outer sky. There are not two skies then, only one sky.
