Question #1:

WITNESSING is not a mental activity; thinking is a mental activity. Rather, it would be better to say that thinking is mind. When the mind is not, when the mind is absent, when the mind has disappeared, only then do you have witnessing. It is something behind the mind.

Zen Buddhism uses mind in two ways: the ordinary mind [mind with a lowercase 'm'] means thinking; then Mind with a capital "M" means the Mind behind thinking. Consciousness is behind the mind; consciousness comes through the mind. If mind is in a state of thinking, it becomes opaque, non-transparent, just like a clouded sky - you cannot see the sky. When the clouds are not, you can see the sky. When thinking is not there, then you can feel the witnessing. It is the pure sky behind.

So when I said that you cannot do two things, I meant either you can think or you can witness. If you are thinking, then you lose witnessing. Then the mind becomes a cloud on your consciousness. If you are witnessing, you cannot think simultaneously; then the mind is not there. Thinking is an acquired process; witnessing is your nature. So when I say that you cannot do both or mind cannot do both, I don't mean that mind is the faculty to witness. Mind is the faculty to think, mind is for "minding".

Really, many problems are created just by language. There is nothing like mind. There is only a process. not a thing. It is better to call it minding than mind. It is a process of continuous thought, one thought being followed by another. Only in the gaps, only in the intervals between two thoughts, can you have something of the witnessing nature. But thoughts are so speedy that you cannot even feel the gap. If you begin to witness your thoughts, then the thought process is slowed down and then you begin to feel gaps. One thought passes, another has not come yet, and there is an interval. In that interval you have witnessing. And thoughts cannot exist without gaps; otherwise they will begin to overlap each other. They cannot exist! Just like my fingers are there - with gaps in between.

If your thought process is slowed down - and any method of meditation is nothing but a slowing down of the thought process - if the thought process is slowed down, you begin to feel the gaps. Through these gaps is witnessing. Thought is mind; a thoughtless consciousness is witnessing. Thought is acquired from the outside; witnessing is inside. Consciousness is born with you: thought is acquired, cultivated. So you can have a Hindu thought, you can have a Mohammedan thought, you can have a Christian thought, but you cannot have a Christian soul, you cannot have a Hindu soul. Soul is just soul - consciousness is consciousness.

Minds have types. You have a particular mind. That particular mind is your upbringing, conditioning, education, culture. Mind means whatsoever has been put into you from the outside, and witnessing means whatsoever has not been put from the outside but is your inside - intrinsically, naturally. It is your nature. Mind is a by-product, a habit. Witnessing, consciousness, awareness, whatsoever you call it, is your nature. But you can acquire so many habits, and the nature can go just underneath. You can forget it completely. So, really, religion is a fight for nature against habits. It is to uncover that which is natural - the original, the real you.

So remember the first thing: witnessing and thinking are different states. Thinking belongs to your mind; witnessing belongs to your nature. And you cannot do both simultaneously. Mind must cease for your consciousness to be; thought must cease for your real nature to be. So a thinker is one thing, and an Enlightened person is totally different.

A Buddha is not a thinker. Hegel or Kant are thinkers. They use their minds to reach particular conclusions. Buddha is not using his mind to reach any conclusions. Buddha is not using his mind at all. He is really a no-mind. He has stopped using mind. He is using himself, not the mind, to reach any conclusions. So with the mind you can reach conclusions, but all conclusions will be hypothetical, theoretical, because one thought can beget another thought. But thought cannot beget reality, thought cannot beget Truth.

Through witnessing you reach reality - not conclusions, not theories, but direct, immediate facts. For example, I am saying something to you. You can think about it - then you have missed the point. You can think about it, what witnessing is, what mind is - you can think about it. This is one way, this is the mind's way. But you can experiment with it and not think. And by "experiment" is meant that you have to know how to stop the mind and feel the witnessing. Then again you reach to something, but then it is not a conclusion; it is not something achieved through the thought process. Then it is something you realize.

Someone was asking Aurobindo, "Do you believe in God?"

Aurobindo said, "No, I don't believe in God at all." The questioner was perplexed because he had come a long way just because he thought Aurobindo was capable of showing him the path towards God. And now Aurobindo says, "I don't believe."

He couldn't believe his ears, so he asked again. He said, "I am perplexed. I have come a long way just to ask you how to achieve God. And if you don't believe, then the problem, the question, doesn't arise."

Aurobindo said, "Who says that the question doesn't arise? I don't believe because I know that God is. But that is not my belief, that is not a conclusion reached by thought. It is not my belief. I know! That is my knowing."

Mind can, at the most, believe. It can never know. It can believe either that there is God or there is no God, but both are beliefs. These both are beliefs. Both have reached to these conclusions through "minding", through thinking. They have thought, they have tried to probe logically, and then they have come to certain conclusions.

A Buddha is not a believer - HE KNOWS! And when I say he knows, knowing is possible only in one way. It is not through mind. It is through throwing mind completely. It is difficult to conceive because we have to conceive through the mind; that is the difficulty. I have to talk to you through the medium of the mind, and you have to listen to me through the medium of the mind. So when I say it is not to be achieved through mind, your mind takes it - but it is inconceivable for the mind. It can even create a theory about it. You may begin to believe that the Truth cannot be achieved through mind. If you begin to believe, you are in mind again. You can say, "I am not convinced. I don't believe that there is anything beyond the mind." Then again you are within the mind.

You can never go beyond the mind if you go on using it. You have to take a jump, and meditation means that jump. That's why meditation is illogical, irrational. And it cannot be made logical; it cannot be reduced to reason. You have to experience it. If you experience, only then do you know.

So try this: don't think about it, try - try to be a witness to your own thoughts. Sit down, relaxed, close your eyes, let your thoughts run just like on a screen pictures run. See them, look at them, make them your objects. One thought arises: look at it deeply. Don't think about it, just look at it. If you begin to think about it then you are not a witness - you have fallen in the trap.

There is a horn outside; a thought arises - some car is passing; or a dog barks or something happens. Don't think about it; just look at the thought. The thought has arisen, taken form. Now it is before you. Soon it will pass. Another thought will replace it. Go on looking at this thought process. Even for a single moment, if you are capable of looking at this thought process without thinking about it, you will have gained something in witnessing and you will have known something in witnessing. This is a taste, a different taste than thinking - totally different. But one has to experiment with it.

Religion and science are poles apart, but in one thing they are similar and their emphasis is the same: science depends on experiment, and religion also. Only philosophy is non-experimental. Philosophy depends just on thinking. Religion and science both depend on experiment: science on objects, religion on your subjectivity. Science depends on experimenting with other things than you, and Religion depends on experimenting directly with you.

It is difficult, because in science the experimenter is there, the experiment is there and the object to be experimented upon is there. There are three things: the object, the subject and the experiment. In religion you are all the three simultaneously. You are to experiment upon yourself. You are the subject and you are the object and you are the lab.

Don't go on thinking. Begin, start somewhere, to experiment. Then you will have a direct feeling of what thinking is and what witnessing is. And then you will come to know that you cannot do both simultaneously, just as you cannot run and sit simultaneously. If you run, then you cannot sit, then you are not sitting. And if you are sitting, then you cannot run. But sitting is not a function of the legs. Running is a function of the legs; sitting is not a function of legs. Rather, sitting is a non-function of the legs. When the legs are functioning, then you are not sitting. Sitting is a nonfunction of the legs; running is the function.

The same is with the mind: thinking is a function of the mind; witnessing a non-function of the mind. When the mind is not functioning, you have the witnessing, then you have the awareness. That's why I said you cannot do both with your mind. You cannot both sit and run with your legs. But that doesn't mean that sitting is a function of your legs. It is not a function at all; it is a nonfunctioning of your legs.

And you ask, "Is there anything like partial witnessing and total witnessing?"

No - there is nothing like partial witnessing and total witnessing. Witnessing is total. It may be for a single moment and then it may go, but when it is there it is total. Can you sit partially or totally? What can we understand by sitting partially? Witnessing is a total thing. Really, in life, nothing is partial - in life. Only with mind everything is partial. Understand this: with mind, nothing is total and never can be total. And when mind is not there, everything is total, nothing can be partial. So mind is the faculty to bring partialness and fragmentariness in life.

For example, watch a child in anger. The child is yet raw, uncultured. Look at his anger: the anger is total; it is not partial. Nothing is suppressed, it is a full flowering. That's why children in anger are so beautiful. Every totality has a beauty of its own.

When you are in anger, your anger is never total. The mind has come in - it is going to be partial. Something is bound to be suppressed, and that something suppressed will become a poison. Then your love also cannot be total. It is going to be partial. Neither can you hate nor can you love. Whatsoever you do will be partial because the mind is functioning.

A child can be angry this moment, and the second moment he can be in love. And when he is in anger it is a total thing, and when he is in love it is again a total thing. Every moment is total! The mind is still undeveloped. Again, a sage is just like a child. There are many, many differences, but the childhood comes again - he is total again. But he cannot be in anger. The child is without a mind as far as this life is concerned, but past lives and many minds accumulated in the unconscious, they go on working. So a child appears total, but he cannot be really total. This life's mind is still growing, but he has many, many minds hidden in the subconscious, in the unconscious, in the deeper realms of the mind.

A sage is totally without mind - of this life or of past lives - so he can be only total in anything. He cannot be angry, he cannot be in hate, and the reason is again that no one can be totally in anger. Anger is painful and you cannot be totally in anything which gives pain to you. He cannot be in hate because now he cannot be in anything in which he cannot be total. It is not a question of good and evil; it is not a moral question. Really, for a sage. it is a question of being total. He cannot be otherwise.

Lao Tzu says, "I call that good in which you can be total and that bad in which you can never be total." Partiality is sin. If you look at it in this way, then mind becomes sin - mind is the faculty of being partial. Witnessing is total, but in our lives nothing is total - nothing. We are partial in everything. That's why there is no bliss, no ecstasy - because only when you are total in something do you have a blissful moment and never otherwise. Bliss means being total in something, and we are never total in anything. Only a part of us goes into something and a part of us remains outside. This creates a tension: one part somewhere and another part somewhere else. So whatsoever we do, even if we love, it is a tension, it is an anguish.

Psychologists say that if you study someone in love, then love appears just like any disease. Even love is not a blissful thing. It is anguish, a heavy burden. And that's why one gets bored even with love, fed up - because the mind is not in bliss, it is in anguish. In whatsoever we are partial we are bound to be tense, in anguish. "Partial" means we are divided, and mind is bound to be partial. Why? Because mind is not one thing. Mind means many things. Mind is a collection; it is not a unity.

Your nature is a unity. Your mind is a collection; it is not a unity at all. It has been collected by the way. So many persons have influenced your mind, so many influences have made it. Nothing goes by which is not impressing your mind. Everything that passes you impresses itself upon you: your friends impress you, your enemies also; your attractions impress you, your repulsions also; what you like impresses you and what you don't like also impresses you. You go on collecting in multi-dimensional ways. So mind is just a junkyard. It is not unitary. It is a "multiverse", it is not a universe, so it can never be total. How can it be total? It is a crowd with many, many contradictory, self-contradictory openings.

Old psychology believed in one mind, but new psychology says this is a false concept. Mind is a multiplicity, it is not one. You don't have one mind. It is only a linguistic habit that we go on talking about one mind. We go on saying "my mind", but this is wrong, factually wrong. It is better to say "my minds".

Mahavir came upon this fact two thousand years ago. He is reported to have said: "Man is not unipsychic, man is polypsychic - many minds." That's why you cannot be total with the mind. Either the majority of your minds is with you or the minority. Any mind decision is bound to be a parliamentary decision and nothing more. At the most you can hope for a majority decision.

And then a second thing comes in: it is not a fixed crowd - it is a changing crowd. It is not a fixed crowd! Every moment something is being added and something is being lost, so every moment you have new minds.

Buddha is passing through a city and someone comes to him and says, "I want to serve humanity. Show me the path!" Buddha closes his eyes and remains silent. The man feels bewildered. He asks again: "I am saying that I want to serve humanity, Why have you become silent? Is there something wrong in my asking this?"

Buddha opens his eyes and says, "You want to serve humanity, but where are you? First BE! You are not! You are a crowd. This moment you want to serve humanity, the second moment you may want to murder humanity. First be! You cannot do anything unless you are. So don't think of doings - first contemplate about your being."

This "being" can happen only through witnessing, never through thinking. Witnessing is total because your nature is one. You are born as one, then you accumulate many minds. Then you begin to feel these many minds as you - then you are identified, This identification is to be broken.

 

Question 2:

There are two basic paths - only two. One is of surrendering and another is of willing: the path of surrender and the path of will. They are diametrically opposite as far as going through them is concerned. But they reach to the same goal, they reach to the same realization. So we have to understand a little more in detail.

The path of will starts with your witnessing Self. It is not concerned with your ego directly - only indirectly. To start witnessing, to be aware of your acts, is directly concerned with awakening your inner Self. If the inner Self is awakened, the ego disappears as a consequence. You are not to do anything with the ego directly. They cannot both exist simultaneously. If your Self is awakened, the ego will disappear. The path of will tries to awaken the inner center directly. Many, many methods are used.

How to awaken the Self? We will discuss that.

The path of surrender is directly concerned with the ego, not with the Self. When the ego disappears, the inner Self is awakened automatically. The path of surrender is concerned with the ego immediately, directly. You are not to do anything to awaken your inner Self. You are just to surrender your ego. The moment ego is surrendered, you are left with your inner Self awakened.

Of course. these both will work in opposite directions, because one will be concerned with ego and one will be concerned with Self. Their methods, their techniques, will be opposite - and no one can follow both. There is no need to and that is impossible also. Everyone has to choose.

If you choose the path of will, then you are left alone to work upon yourself. It is an arduous thing. One has to struggle - to fight - to fight with old habits which create sleep. Then the only fight is against sleep, and the only ambition is for a deep awakening inside. Those who follow will, they know only one sin, and that sin is spiritual sleepiness.

Many are the techniques. I have discussed some. For example, Gurdjieff used a Sufi exercise. Sufis call it "halt". For example, you are sitting here, and if you are practising the exercise of "halt" it means total halt. Whenever the teacher says "Stop!" or "Halt!" then you have to stop totally whatsoever you are doing. If your eyes are open, then stop them there and then. Now you cannot close them. If your hand is raised, let it be there. Whatsoever your position and gesture, just be frozen in it. No movements! Halt totally! Try this, and suddenly you will have an inner awakening - a feeling. Suddenly you will become aware of your own frozenness.

The whole body is frozen, you have become a solid stone, you are like a statue. But if you go on deceiving yourself, then you have fallen into sleep. You can deceive yourself. You can say, "Who is seeing me? I can close my eyes. They are becoming painful." You can deceive yourself - then you have fallen into sleep. No - deception is sleep. Don't deceive yourself, because no one else is concerned. It is up to you. If you can be frozen for a single moment you will begin to see yourself as different, and your center will become aware of your frozen body.

There are other ways. For example, Mahavir and his tradition have used fasting as a method to awaken the Self. If you fast, the body begins to demand, the body begins to overpower you. Mahavir has said, "Just witness - don't do anything. You feel hungry, so feel hungry. The body asks for food - be a witness to it, don t do anything. Just be a witness to whatsoever is happening." And it is a deep thing.

There are only two deep things in the body - sex and food. Nothing is more than these two, because food is needed for individual survival and sex is needed for race survival. Both are survival mechanisms. The individual cannot survive without food and the race cannot survive without sex. So sex is food for the race and food is sex for the individual. These are the deepest things because they are concerned with your survival - the most basic things. You will die without them.

So if you are fasting and just witnessing, then you have touched the deepest sleep. And if you can witness without being identified or bothered - the body is suffering, the body is hungry, the body is demanding and you are just witnessing - suddenly the body will be different. There will be a discontinuity between you and the body; there will be a gap.

Fasting has been used by Mahavir. Mohammedans have used vigilance in the night - no sleep! Don't sleep for a week and then you will know how sleepy the whole being becomes, how difficult it is to maintain this vigilance. But if one persists, suddenly a moment comes when the body and you are tom apart. Then you can see that the body needs sleep - it is not your need.

Many are the methods to work directly to create more awareness in youurself, to bring yourself above your so-called sleepy existence. No surrender is needed. Rather, one has to fight against surrender. No surrender is needed, because this is a path of struggle not of surrender. Because of this path, Mahavir was given the name "Mahavir". "Mahavir" means "the great warrior". This was not his name. His name was Vardhaman. He was called Mahavir because he was a great warrior as far as this inner struggle is concerned. He had no Guru, no Master, because it is a path of being entirely alone. Even to take somebody's help is not good - it may become your sleep.

There is a story:

Mahavir was fasting and remaining silent for years together. In a certain village some mischievous people were disturbing him, harassing him, and he was on a vow of silence. He was beaten so many times because he would not speak and he remained naked - completely naked. So the villagers were at a loss to understand who he was. And he would not speak! And moreover he was naked! So from one village to another village he would be thrown out, made to leave the village.

The story says Indra, the King of gods, came to him and said to Mahavir, "I can defend you. It has become so painful. You are being beaten unnecessarily, so just allow me to defend you."

Mahavir rejected the help. Later on, when he was asked why he rejected the help, he said, "This path of will is a lonely path. You cannot even have a helper with you because then the struggle loosens. Then the struggle becomes partial. Then you can depend on someone else, and wherever there is dependence, sleep comes in. One has to be totally independent; only then can one be awake."

This is one path, one basic attitude. All these methods of witnessing belong to this path. So when I say, "Be a witness." it is meant for those who are travelers on the path of will.

Quite the opposite is the method of surrender. Surrender is concerned with your ego, not with your Self. In surrender you have to give up yourself. Of course, you cannot give the Self; that is impossible. Whatsoever you can give is bound to be your ego. Only the ego can be given - because it is just incidental to you. It is not even a part of your being, just something added. It is a possession. Of course, the possessor has also become possessed by it. But it is a possession, it is a property - it is not you.

The path of surrender says, "Surrender your ego to the Teacher, to the Divine, to a Buddha." When someone comes to Buddha and says, "BUDDHAM SHARANAM GAUCHHAMI" - I take shelter at your feet. I surrender myself at Buddha's feet," what is he doing? The Self cannot be surrendered, so leave it out. Whatsoever you can surrender is your ego. That is your possession; you can surrender it. If you can surrender your ego to someone, it makes no difference to whom - X, Y or Z. The person to be surrendered to is irrelevant in a way. The real thing is surrendering. So you can surrender to a God in the sky. Whether He is there or not is irrelevant. If a concept of the Divine in the sky can help you to surrender your ego, then it is a good device.

Really, yoga shastras say that God is a device to be surrendered to - just a device! So you need not bother whether God is or not. He is just a device, because it will be difficult for you to surrender in a vacuum. So let there be a God, and you surrender. Even a false device can help. For example, you see a rope on the street and you think that it is a snake. It moves like a snake. You are afraid, you are trembling, you are running. You begin to perspire, and your perspiration is real. And there is no snake - there is just a rope mistaken for a snake.

The yoga sutras say that God is a just a device to be surrendered to. Whether God is or is not is not meaningful; you need not bother about it. If He is, you will come to know through surrender. You need not be bothered about it before surrender. If He is, then you will know; if He is not, then you will know. So no discussion, no argument, no proof is needed. And it is very beautiful: they say He is a device, just a hypothetical thing to which you can surrender yourself, to help you surrender. So a Teacher can become a god; a Teacher is a god. Unless you feel a Teacher as a god, you cannot surrender. Surrendering becomes possible if you feel that Mahavir is a god, Buddha is a god. Then you can surrender easily. Whether a Buddha is a god or not is irrelevant. Again, it is a device, it helps.

Buddha is known to have said that every truth is a device to help, every truth is just a utility. If it works, it is true. And there is no other basis for calling it true or untrue - if it works, it is true!

On the path of surrender, surrendering is the only technique. There are many techniques on the path of will, because you can make many efforts to awaken yourself. But when one is just to surrender, there are no methods.

One day a man came to Ramakrishna. He wanted to donate one thousand gold coins to Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna said, "I don't need them, but when you have taken such a big burden from your house to Dakshineshwar, to my hut, it will not be good to carry it back again. Mm? - it will be unnecessary. So just go to the Ganges and throw it in."

The man, of course, was in a very deep difficulty, great difficulty. What to do? He hesitated, so Ramakrishna said, "You have donated them to me, now they do not belong to you. I order you! Go to the Ganges and throw them!" So he had to.

He went to the Ganges but did not return. One hour passed. Ramakrishna asked someone, "Where has that man gone? Go and find out!" So some disciples went and he was brought back. Ramakrishna asked, "Such a long time? What were you doing?"

So the persons who had gone to find him said, "He was counting them and throwing one piece at a time - one, two, three - one thousand pieces. He would look at a gold coin, count it and then he would throw it." So Ramakrishna said, "What nonsense! When one is to throw, there is no need to count. When one accumulates, there is a need to count; you have to know how many coins you have. But when you have gone to throw them, why waste time in counting? You can just throw!"

Surrendering is throwing the ego. There is no counting and there are no methods. You just throw it. It itself is the technique. On the path of surrender, surrender is the path and surrender is the technique. On the path of will, will is the path and there are many techniques to work it out. But surrender is simple in a way. You throw it! The moment you throw your ego - and only the ego can be thrown - suddenly you become aware, aware of your inner center. You reach the same point, but through a very diverse path.

One thing more to be understood, and that has been asked: whether to be aware or to be lost in something. Whenever I talk of surrender, I talk of being lost in something. A Meera dancing: she is not aware that she is dancing - she has become the dance. There is no gap. She has surrendered her ego completely. There is dancing - she is not aware; she is completely lost in it. When you are absorbed totally then you are in surrender - absorbed totally. But only the ego can be absorbed - only the ego! And when the ego is absorbed, the Self is there in its total purity.

But that is not the concern. On the path of surrender that is not the concern! Meera is not concerned with awareness, with consciousness - no. She is concerned with being completely unconscious in the Divine dance or in the Divine song - with being lost totally in it. To lose oneself totally.... That which cannot be lost will be there, of course, but it is not the concern.

On the path of will, ego is not the concern - the Self is. On the path of surrender, the Self is not the concern. Remember this difference of emphasis, this difference of focusing. That's why there is so much controversy, so much controversy, between a devotee and a yogi, a bhakta and a yogi. The yogi is on the path of will and the bhakta is on the path of surrender, so they speak totally different languages. There is no bridge. The yogi is trying to be, and the bhakta is trying not to be. The yogi is trying to be aware and the bhakta is trying to be totally lost.

Of course, they are bound to speak diametrically opposite languages, and there is much controversy, much argument. But those arguments and those controversies do not really belong to a real devotee or to a real yogi: they belong to scholars. to academicians. Those who think about devotion and about yoga, they go on discussing problems - and then there is no meeting point because that meeting point is reached only through experience. If you stick to the terms and the jargon used, then you will be confused.

A Chaitanya, a bhakta, cannot speak the language of Mahavir. They don't belong to the same path. They reach to the same point ultimately, but they never travel the same path. So their experiences of the path are bound to be different. The ultimate ecstasy will be the same, but that cannot be said; that is the problem. The ult!mate experience will be the same, but that is inexpressible. And whatsoever is expressible is just experiences on the path, and they are found to be difficult and opposite.

A Mahavir will become more and more centered on the path, more and more one Self. and Chaitanya will be less and less oneself on the path. He will go on throwing himself unto the Divine feet. To Mahavir it will look like suicide, and to Chaitanya, Mahavir's path will look a very egoistic thing.

Mahavir says there is no God, so don't surrender. Really, Mahavir denies God only to make surrender impossible. If yoga proposes God as a device, Mahavir proposes no God, again as a device - a device on the path of will. If there is God, then you cannot proceed on the path of will. It is difficult, because if there is a God then something is more potent than you, more powerful than you. Then something is more high than you, so how can you be authentically your Self?

Mahavir says, "If there is a God, then I am bound to be always in bondage, because something is always above me. And if you say God has created the world and God has created me, then what can I do? Then I am just a puppet in his hands. Then where is the will? Then there is no possibility of will. There is only a deep determinism. Then nothing can be done." So Mahavir dethrones God just as a device on the path of will. "There is no God," Mahavir says. "You are the God and no one else is the God, so there is no need to surrender."

Chaitanya uses going to the Divine feet - sharanam - as the basic religious effort. But Mahavir says asharanam - never to go anybody's feet. Of course, sharanam and asharanam - to go and surrender to the Divine feet, and never to go to anybody's feet because no feet except your own are Divine - these are completely, diametrically opposite standpoints. But just in the beginning and while on the path - they reach to the same thing. Either surrender your ego - then you have not to do anything. You have to do only one thing: surrender your ego. Then you have not to do anything. Then everything will begin to happen. If you cannot surrender then you will have to do much, because then you are on your own to fight, struggle.

Both paths are valid, and there is no question of which is better. It depends on the person who is following. It depends on your type. Every path is valid, and there are many subpaths, branches. Some branches belong to the path of will, some to the path of surrender. Paths, subpaths - everything is valid. But for you not everything can be valid; only one thing can be valid - mm? - for you individually. So don't get into confusion that: "Everything is valid so I can follow everything." You cannot follow! You have to follow one path. There is no Truth; there are truths. But for you, one truth has to be chosen.

So the first thing for the seeker is to determine to what type he belongs, what he is, what will be good for him, and what his inner inclination is. Can he surrender? Can you surrender? Can you efface your ego? If that is possible, then simple surrender can do. But it is not so simple - very difficult. To efface the ego is not so simple. To put someone higher than you, to put someone as a God and then surrender - very difficult! Nietzsche has said: "I would like to be in hell if I can be the first there. I would not like to be in heaven if I am put second to anyone there. To be in hell is good if one can be the first."

Bayazid was a great Sufi mystic. He had a big monastery and many seekers from many parts of the world would come to him. One day a person came and he said, "I want to be here in your monastery. I want to be one of your inmates."

Bayazid said to the man, "We have two types of inmates: one type who are disciples, another type who are teachers. To which would you like to belong?" The person had come to find Truth. He said, "Give me a little time to think about it."

So Bayazid said, "There is no need - you have thought about it. Tell me!"

So he said, "It will be better if I can belong to the group of teachers."

He had come to seek, but he wanted to belong to the group of teachers, not to the disciples. So Bayazid said, "That second group - of teachers - doesn't exist in my monastery Mm? - that was just a trick. So you can go. Your path is of the disciples, those who can surrender. So you are not for us and we are not for you."

The man said. "If that is the case, then I can belong to the disciples."

So Bayazid said, "No, there is no possibility. You will have to go."

If you can surrender, you can be a disciple. On the path of will, you are the teacher and you are the disciple. On the path of surrender, you are the disciple. And sometimes this is really arduous.

Ebrahim, a king of Balkh, came to a Sufi Teacher and said. "I have renounced my kingdom - now accept me as your disciple!"

The Teacher said, "Before I accept you, you will have to pass through a certain test."

Ebrahim said, "I am ready - but I cannot wait, so test me."

The Teacher said, "Go naked and make a round of your capital. And take one of my sandals and go on beating on your head with it."

Those who were sitting there were just aghast. An old man said to the Teacher, "What are you doing to that poor man? He has renounced his kingdom. What more do you demand? What are you saying? And I have never seen such things before! Not even you have demanded such things before!"

But the Teacher said, "This has to be fulfilled. Come back, and only then will I think about making you my disciple."

Ebrahim undressed, took a sandal, began to beat on his head, and passed through the city. He came back, and the Teacher bowed down to Ebrahim and touched his feet. He said, "You are already Enlightened."

And Ebrahim said, "I myself feel a sudden change. I am a different person. But how, miraculously, have you changed me? The whole city was laughing - I was just mad."

This is surrender. Then surrendering is enough. It is a sudden method, it can work in a moment, it can explode you in a moment.

On the surface it looks easy - that one has not to do anything, just to surrender. Then you do not know what surrendering means. It can mean anything. If the Teacher says, "Jump into the sea!" then there should be no hesitation. Surrendering means, "Now I am not - now you are. Do whatsoever you like."

In Egypt there was a mystic, Dhun-Nun. When he was with his Teacher, he came to ask a certain question. The Teacher said, "Unless I say to you, 'Ask,' don't ask, and wait." For twelve years Dhun- Nun was waiting. He would come daily in the morning - the first man to enter the hut of the Teacher. He would sit there. Many, many others would come to ask and they would be answered. And the Teacher didn't say to anyone again, "Wait!" It was too much. And that man Dhun-Nun was waiting - for twelve years. He was not allowed to ask. So that was the first thing he uttered, "I want to ask a certain question," and the Teacher said, "You wait - unless I tell you to ask, you cannot ask. Wait!"

For twelve years he waited. The Teacher wouldn't even look at him; the Teacher wouldn't even give any hint that he was going to let him ask. He completely forgot that Dhun-Nun exists. And Dhun-Nun waited day and night for twelve years. Then one day the Teacher moved to him and said, "Dhun-Nun - but now you need not ask. You had come to ask a certain question. Now I allow you, but I think now you need not ask."

Dhun-Nun bowed, touched the Teacher's feet and said, "You have given me answer enough."

What had happened to Dhun-Nun? You cannot wait twelve years unless you have surrendered totally. Then doubts are bound to arise - whether you have become a madman, whether he has forgotten you completely. And to no one else was the Teacher saying "Wait!" For twelve years, thousands and thousands of people would come and ask and he would answer. And this would go on continuously, day after day, and the man waited. It was a total trust.

The Teacher said, "Now you need not ask."

And Dhun-Nun said, "There is no question left. These twelve years, what a miracle you did with me! You did not even look at me. What a miracle! You did not even give a hint!"

Surrender means total trust. Then you are not needed. If you cannot give total trust, if you cannot surrender, then the only way is the path of will. But don't be confused. I know so many people going around and around confused. They would like something to happen to them just like what happens on the path of surrender, but they are not ready to surrender. They would like to behave like a man of will and would like something to happen as it happens on the path of surrender.

Only yesterday I received a letter, and I receive many letters like that. The letter-writer says, "I want to learn much from you. but I cannot accept you as my Guru. I want to come and live with you, but I cannot become your disciple." What is he saying? He wants to gain something just like one gains in surrender, but he wants to be intact as far as his will is concerned. This is impossible! One has to choose - and everything is just a device.

Two or three days ago, some friends came and they said to me, "People call you God - why do you accept it?"

I told them, "It may be helpful to them. It is not your concern." They couldn't understand because for them everything is a fact. Either it is or it is not. To me, everything is a device.

If someone has come to me to surrender, then a certain device is needed for him. And if someone has come not to surrender, then that device is useless for him, it is meaningless. But be clear about what you are and what you are trying to find out and how you want to find it out. Can you give up your ego? Then no need of awareness. Then you need a deep absorption. Be absorbed - dissolve! Don't be. Forget! Rather than remembering, forgetting. Mm? - I told you that Gurdjieff said remembering is the method. For Meera, for Chaitanya, forgetting is the method: not SMRITI - not remembering; but VISMRITI - forgetting. Forget yourself completely, efface yourself completely! And if that is not possible for you, then make every effort to be awake. Then don't lose yourself in anything - not even in music.

Mohammed was totally against music only because of this: on the path of will, music is a hindrance because you can forget yourself in it. So don't forget yourself in anything, don't lose yourself. But then use techniques to be more and more awake, more and more alert, more and more attentive, more and more conscious.

And remember one thing: you cannot do both. If you are doing both, then you will be very much confused - and your effort will be wasted, and your energy will be unnecessarily dissipated. Choose, and then stick to it. Only then can something happen. It is a long process and arduous. And there are no shortcuts. All the shortcuts are deceptions. But because everyone is lethargic and everyone wants something without doing anything, many shortcuts are invented. There is no shortcut!

It is reported that Euclid, who invented geometry, was also a teacher of Alexander. Euclid was teaching Alexander mathematics. particularly geometry. Alexander said to Euclid, "Don't go on with this long process. I am not an ordinary student. Find some shortcut!" Euclid didn't return again. One day passed, two days, three, one week. Alexander inquired.

Euclid wrote a note saying: "There are no shortcuts. Whether you are an emperor or a beggar, there are no shortcuts. And if you desire some shortcut, then I am not your teacher. Then you need someone who can deceive you. I am not your teacher. So find someone else. Someone will come up who will say, 'No, I know the shortcut.' But in knowledge there are no shortcuts. One has to go the long way."

So don't be deceived, and don't think that if you combine both paths then it will be good for you - no. Every system is perfect in itself, and the moment you combine it with something else, you destroy the organic unity in it.

There are many, many persons who go on talking about a synthesis of religions - which is nonsense! Every religion is a perfect, organic whole. It need not be combined with anything else. If you combine, you destroy everything. There may be similarities in the Bible and the Koran and the Vedas, but these are superficial similarities. Deep down they each have a different organic unity of their own.

So then if one is a Christian, one should be one hundred percent a Christian. And if one is a Hindu, one should be one hundred percent a Hindu. A fifty percent Hindu and a fifty percent Christian is just insane. It is just like fifty percent ayurvedic medicine and fifty percent allopathic medicine. The person will go insane. There is no synthesis between "pathies", and every religion is like a "pathy". It is a medicine. it is a science - every technique!

Because I have mentioned medicine, it will be good to finish, to conclude, that the path of will is just like naturopathy - you have to depend upon yourself. No help! The path of surrender is more like allopathy - you can use medicines.

Think of it in this way: when someone is ill, he has two things - an inner, positive possibility of health and an accidental or incidental phenomenon of disease, illness. Naturopathy is not concerned with illness directly. Naturopathy is directly concerned with a positive growth of health. So grow in health! Naturopathy means growing in health positively. When you grow in health, the disease will disappear by itself. You need not be concerned with disease directly. Allopathy is not concerned with positive health at all. It is concerned with the illness: destroy the illness and you will be healthy automatically.

The path of will is concerned with growing in positive awareness. >>> If you grow, the ego will disappear - that is the disease. The path of surrender is concerned with the disease itself, not with positive growth in health. >>> Destroy the disease - surrender the ego - and you will grow in health.

The path of surrender is allopathic and the path of will is naturopathic. But don't mix both, otherwise you will be more ill. Then your effort to be healthy will create more problems for you. And everyone is just confused. One goes on thinking that if you use many, many "pathies", of course, mathematically, you should gain health sooner. Mathematically, logically, it may seem so, but it is not so really. You may even become an impossible case.

 

 

Question 1:

THE UNCONSCIOUS can be transformed only through awareness. It is difficult, but there is no other way. There are many methods for being aware, but awareness is necessary. You can use methods to be aware, but you will have to be aware.

If someone asks whether there is any method to dispel darkness except by light, howsoever difficult it may be that is the only way - because darkness is simply the absence of light. So you have to create the presence of light, and then darkness is not there.

Unconsciousness is nothing but an absence - the absence of consciousness. It is not something positive in itself, so you cannot do anything except be aware. If unconsciousness were something in its own right, then it would be a different matter - but it is not. Unconsciousness doesn't mean something; it only means not consciousness. It is just an absence. It has no existence in itself; in itself it is not. The word "unconscious" simply shows the absence of consciousness and nothing else. When we say "darkness" the word is misleading, because the moment we say "darkness" it appears that darkness is something that is there. It is not, so you cannot do anything with darkness directly - or can you?

You may not have observed the fact, but with darkness you cannot do anything directly. Whatsoever you want to do with darkness you will have to do with light, not with darkness. If you want darkness, then put off light. If you don't want darkness, then put on light. But you cannot do anything directly with darkness; you will have to go via light.

Why? Why can you not go directly? You cannot go directly because there is nothing like darkness, so you cannot touch it directly. You have to do something with light, and then you have done something with darkness.

If light is there, then darkness is not there. If light is not there, then darkness is there. You can bring light into this room, but you cannot bring darkness. You can take light out from this room, but you cannot take darkness out from this room. There exists no connection between you and darkness. Why? If darkness were there then man could be related somehow, but darkness is not there.

Language gives you a fallacy that darkness is something. Darkness is a negative term. It exists not. It connotes only that light is not there - nothing more - and the same is with unconsciousness. So when you ask what to do other than to be aware, you ask an irrelevant question. You will have to be aware; you cannot do anything else.

Of course, there are many methods for being aware - mm? - that is a different thing. There are many ways to create light - but light will have to be created. You can create a fire and there will be no darkness. And you can use a kerosene lamp and there will be no darkness, and you can use electricity and there will be no darkness. But whatsoever the case, whatsoever the method of producing light, light has to be produced.

So light is a must, and whatsoever I will say in reference to this question will be about methods to produce awareness. They are not alternatives, remember. They are not alternatives to awareness - nothing can be. Awareness is the only possibility for dispelling darkness, for dispelling unconsciousness. But how to create awareness? I talked about one method which is the purest: to be aware inside of whatsoever happens on the boundary line of the unconscious and to the conscious - to be aware there.

Anger is there. Anger is produced in darkness; anger has roots in the unconscious. Only branches and leaves come into the conscious. Roots, seeds, the energy source, are in the unconscious. You become aware only of faraway branches. Be conscious of these branches. The more conscious you are, the more you will be capable of looking into darkness.

Have you observed at any time that if you look deeply in darkness for a certain time, a certain dim light begins to be there? If you concentrate in darkness, you begin to feel and you begin to see. You can train yourself, and then in darkness itself there is a certain amount of light - because, really, in this world nothing can be absolute and nothing is. Everything is relative. When we say "darkness", it doesn't mean absolute darkness. It only means that there is less light. If you practise to see in it, you will be capable of seeing, Look! Focus yourself in the darkness! And then, by and by, your eyes are strengthened and you begin to see.

Inner darkness, unconsciousness, is the same. Look into it. But you can look only if you are not active. If you begin to act, your mind is distracted. Don't act inside. Anger is there - don't act, don't condemn, don't appreciate, don't indulge in it, and don't suppress it. Don't do anything - just look at it! observe it! Understand the distinction.

What happens ordinarily is quite the reverse. If you are angry, then your mind is focused on the cause of anger outside - always! Someone has insulted you - you are angry. Now there are three things: the cause of anger outside, the source of anger inside, and in between these two you are.

Anger is your energy inside, the cause which has provoked your energy to come up is outside, and you are in between. The natural way of the mind is not to be aware of the source, but to be focused on the cause outside. Whenever you are angry you are in deep concentration on the cause outside.

Mahavir has called KRODHA - anger - a sort of meditation. He has named it ROUDRA DHYAN - meditation on negative attitudes. It is! - because you are concentrated. Really, when you are in deep anger you are so concentrated that the whole world disappears. Only the cause of anger is focused. Your total energy is on the cause of anger, and you are so much focused on the cause that you forget yourself completely. That's why in anger you can do things about which, later on, you can say, "I did them in spite of myself." You were not.

For awareness you have to take an about-turn. You have to concentrate not on the cause outside, but on the source inside. Forget the cause. Close your eyes, and go deep and dig into the source. Then you can use the same energy which was to be wasted on someone outside - the energy moves inwards. Anger has much energy. Anger is energy - the purest of fires inside. Don't waste it outside.

Take another example. You are feeling sexual: sex is again energy, fire. But whenever you feel sexual, again you are focused on someone outside, not on the source. you begin to think of someone - of the lover, of the beloved, A-B-C-D - but when you are filled with sex your focus is always on the other. You are dissipating energy.

Not only in the sexual act do you dissipate energy, but in sexual thinking you dissipate it even more because a sexual act is a momentary thing. It comes to a peak, the energy is released, and you are thrown back. But sexual thinking can continuously be there. You can continue it in sexual thinking, you can dissipate energy. And everyone is dissipating energy. Ninety percent of our thinking is sexual. Whatsoever you are doing outside, inside sex is a constant concern - you may not even be aware of it.

You are sitting in a room and a woman enters: your posture changes suddenly. Your spine is moire erect, your breathing changes, your blood pressure is different. You may not be aware at all of what has happened, but your whole body has reacted sexually. you were a different person when the woman was not there; now again you are a different person.

An all-male group is a different group, and all-female group is a different group. Let one male come in or one female, and the whole group, the whole energy pattern, changes suddenly. You may not be conscious of it, but when your mind is focused on someone, your energy begins to flow. when you feel sexual, look at the source, not at the cause - remember this.

Science is more concerned with the cause and religion is more concerned with the source. The source is always inside; the cause is always outside. With cause you are in a chain reaction. With cause you are connected with your environment. With source you are connected with yourself. So remember this. This is the purest method to change unconscious energy into conscious energy. Take an about-turn - look inside! It is going to be difficult because our look has become fixed. We are like a person whose neck is paralyzed, and who cannot move and look back. Our eyes have become fixed. We have been looking outside for lives together - for millennia - so we don't know how to look inside.

Do this: whenever something happens in your mind, follow it to the source. Anger is there - a sudden flash has come to you - close your eyes, meditate on it. From where is this anger arising? Never ask the question: who has made it possible? who has made you angry? That is a wrong question. Ask which energy in you is transforming into anger - from where is this anger coming up, bubbling up, what is the source inside from where this energy is coming?

Are you aware that in anger you can do something which you cannot do when you are not in anger? A person in anger can throw a big stone easily. When he is not angry he cannot even lift it. He has much energy when he is angry. A hidden source is now with him. So if a man is mad, he becomes very strong. Why? From where is this energy coming? It is not coming from anything outside. Now all his sources are burning simultaneously - anger, sex, everything, is burning simultaneously. Every source is available.

Be concerned with from where anger is bubbling up, from where the sex desire has come in. Follow it, take steps backwards. Meditate silently and go with anger to the roots. It is difficult but it is not impossible. It is not easy. It is not going to be easy because it is a fight against a long, rooted habit. The whole past has to be broken, and you have to do something new which you have never done before. It is just the weight of sheer habit which will create the difficulty. But try it, and then you are creating a new direction for energy to move. You are beginning to be a circle, and in a circle energy is never dissipated.

My energy comes up and moves outside - it can never become a circle now; it is simply dissipated. If my movement inwards is there, then the same energy which was going out turns upon itself. My meditation leads this energy back to the same source from where the anger was coming. It becomes a circle. This inner circle is the strength of a Mahavir. The sex energy, not moving to someone else, moves back to its own source. This circle of sex energy is the strength of a Buddha.

We are weaklings, not because we have less energy than a Buddha: we have the same quanta of energy, everyone is born with the same energy quanta, but we are accustomed to dissipating it. It simply moves away from us and never comes back. It cannot come back! Once it is out of you, it can never come back - it is beyond you.

A word arises in me: I speak it out; it has flown away. It is not going to come back to me, and the energy that was used in producing it, that was used in throwing it away, is dissipated. A word arises in me: I don't throw it out; I remain silent. Then the word moves and moves and moves, and falls into the original source again. The energy has been reconsumed.

Silence is energy. Brahmacharya is energy. Not to be angry is energy. But this is not suppression. If you suppress anger, you have used energy again. Don't suppress - observe and follow. don't fight - just move backwards with the anger. This is the purest method of awareness.

But certain other things can be used. For beginners certain devices are possible. So I will talk about three devices. One type of device is based on body awareness. Forget anger, forget sex - they are difficult problems. And when you are in them, you become so mad that you cannot meditate. When you are angry you cannot meditate; you cannot even think about meditation. You are just mad. So forget it; it is difficult. Then use your own body as a device for awareness.

Buddha has said that when you walk, walk consciously. When you breathe, breathe consciously. The Buddhist method is known as ANAPANASATI YOGA - the yoga of the incoming and outgoing breath, incoming and outgoing breath awareness. The breath comes in: move with the breath; know, be aware, that the breath is moving in. When the breath has gone out again, move with it. Be in, be out, with the breath.

Anger is difficult, sex is difficult - breath is not so difficult. Move with the breath. Don't allow any breath to be in or out without consciousness. This is a meditation. Now you will be focused on breathing, and when you are focused on breathing thoughts stop automatically. you cannot think, because the moment you think your consciousness moves from breath to thought. you have missed breathing.

Try this and you will know. When you are aware of breathing, thoughts cease. The same energy which is used for thoughts is being used in being aware of breath. If you start thinking, you will lose track of the breath, you will forget, and you will think. You cannot do both simultaneously.

If you are following breathing, it is a long process. One has to go into it deeply. It takes a minimum of three months and a maximum of three years. If it is done continuously twenty-four hours a day... it is a method for monks, those who have given up everything; only they can watch their breathing twenty-four hours a day. That's why Buddhist monks and other traditions of monks, they reduce their living to the minimum so that no disturbance is there. They will beg for their food and they will sleep under a tree - that's all. Their whole time is devoted to some inner practice of being aware - mm? - for example, of breath.

A Buddhist monk moves. He has to be continuously aware of his breath. The silence that you see on a Buddhist monk's face is the silence of the awareness of breathing and nothing else. If you become aware your face will become silent, because if thoughts are not there your face cannot show anxiety, thinking. Your face becomes relaxed. Continuous awareness of breathing will stop the mind. The continuously troubled mind will stop. And if the mind stops and you are simply aware of breathing, if the mind is not functioning, you cannot be angry, you cannot be sexual.

Sex or anger or greed or jealousy or envy - anything needs the mechanism of mind. And if the mechanism stops, you cannot do anything. This again leads to the same thing. Now the energy that is used in sex, in anger, in greed, in ambition, has no outlet. And you go on continuously being concerned with breathing, day and night. Buddha has said, "Even in sleep try to be aware of breathing." It will be difficult in the beginning, but if you can be aware in the day, then by and by this will penetrate into your sleep.

Anything penetrates into sleep if it has gone deep in the mind in the day. If you have been worried about a certain thing in the day, it gets into the sleep. If you were thinking continuously about sex, it gets into the sleep. If you were angry the whole day, anger gets into the sleep. So Buddha says there is no difficulty. If a person is continuously concerned with breathing and awareness of the breathing, ultimately it penetrates into the sleep. You cannot dream then. If your awareness is there of incoming breath and outgoing breath, then in sleep you cannot dream.

The moment you dream, this awareness will not be there. If awareness is there, dreams are impossible. So a Buddhist monk asleep is not just like you. His sleep has a different quality. It has a different depth and a certain awareness in it is there.

Ananda said to Buddha, "I have observed you for years and years together. It seems like a miracle: you sleep as if you are awake. You are in the same posture the whole night." The hand would not move from the place where it had been put; the leg would remain in the same posture. Buddha would sleep in the same posture the whole night. Not a single movement! For nights together ananda would sit and watch and wonder, "What type of sleep is this!" Buddha would not move. He would be as if a dead body, and he would wake up in the same posture in which he went to sleep. Ananda asked, "What are you doing? Were you asleep or not? You never move!"

Buddha said, "A day will come, Ananda, when you will know. This shows that you are not practising anapanasati yoga rightly; it shows only this. Otherwise this question would not have arisen. You are not practising anapanasati yoga - if you are continuously aware of your breath in the day, it is impossible not to be conscious of it in the night. And if the mind is concerned with awareness, dreams cannot penetrate. And if there are no dreams, mind is clear, transparent. Your body is asleep, but you are not. Your body is relaxing, you are aware - the flame is there inside. So, Ananda," Buddha is reported to have said, "I am not asleep - only the body is sleep. I am aware! and not only in sleep. Ananda - when I die, you will see: I will be aware, only the body will die."

Practise awareness with breathing; then you will be capable of penetrating. Or practise awareness with body movements. Buddha has a word for it: he calls it "mindfulness". He says, "Walk mindfully." We walk without any mind in it.

A certain man was sitting before Buddha when he was talking one day. He was moving his leg and a toe unnecessarily. There was no reason for it. Buddha stopped talking and asked that man, "Why are you moving your leg? Why are you moving your toe?" Suddenly, as the Buddha asked, the man stopped. Then Buddha asked, "Why have you stopped so suddenly?"

The man said, "Why, I was not even aware that I was moving my toe or my leg! I was not aware! The moment you asked, I became aware."

Buddha said, "What nonsense! Your leg is moving and you are not aware? So what are you doing with your body? Are you an alive man or dead? This is your leg, this is your toe, and it goes on moving and you are not even aware? Then of what are you aware? You can kill a man and you can say, "I was not aware.'" And, really, those who kill are not aware. It is difficult to kill someone when you are aware.

Buddha would say, "Move, walk, but be filled with consciousness. Know inwardly you are walking." You are not to use any words; you are not to use any thoughts. You are not to say inside, "I am walking," because if you say it then you are not aware of walking - you have become aware of your thought, and you have missed walking. Just be somatically aware - not mentally. Just feel that you are walking. Create a somatic awareness, a sensitivity, so that you can feel directly without mind coming in.

The wind is blowing - you are feeling it. Don't use words. Just feel, and be mindful of the feeling. You are lying down on the beach, and the sand is cool, deeply cool. Feel it! - don't use words. Just feel it - the coolness of it, the penetrating coolness of it. Just feel! Be conscious of it; don't use words. Don't say, "The sand is very cool." The moment you say it you have missed an existential moment. You have become intellectual about it.

You are with your lover or with your beloved: feel the presence; don't use words. Just feel the warmth, the love flowing. Just feel the oneness that has happened. don't use words. don't say, "I love you," you will have destroyed it. The mind has come in. And the moment you say, "I love you," it has become a past memory. Just feel without words. Anything felt without words, felt totally without the mind coming in, will give you a mindfulness.

You are eating: eat mindfully; taste everything mindfully. Don't use words. The taste is itself such a great and penetrating thing. Don't use words and don't destroy it. Feel it to the core. You are drinking water: feel it passing through the throat; don't use words. Just feel it; be mindful about it. The movement of the water, the coolness, the disappearing thirst, the satisfaction that follows - feel it!

You are sitting in the sun: feel the warmth; don't use words. The sun is touching you. There is a deep communion. Feel it! In this way, somatic awareness, bodily awareness, is developed. If you develop a bodily awareness, again mind comes to a stop. Mind is not needed. And if mind stops, you are again thrown into the deep unconscious. With a very, very deep alertness you can penetrate, Now you have a light with you, and the darkness disappears.

Those who are bodily oriented, for them it is good to be somatically mindful. For those who are not bodily oriented it is better to be conscious of breathing. Those who feel it difficult, they can use some artificial devices. For example, mantra - mm? - it is an artificial device for being aware. You use a mantra such as "Ram-Ram-Ram" continuously. Inside you create a circle of "Ram-Ram-Ram" or "Aum" or "Allah" or anything. Go on repeating it. But simple repetition is of no use. Side by side, be aware. when you are chanting "Ram-Ram-Ram", be aware of the chanting. Listen to it - "Ram-Ram-Ram" - be aware.

It will be difficult to be aware of anger because anger comes suddenly and you cannot plan it. And when it comes you are so overwhelmed that you may forget it. So create a device like "Ram-Ram-Ram". You can create it, and it will not be a sudden method. And if used for a long time, it becomes an inner sound. Whatsoever you are doing, there will be "Ram-Ram" as a silent sequence. Be aware of it. Then the mantra is complete, the japa is complete, the chanting is complete, when you are not only the creator of the sound but also the listener. It is not only that you are saying "Ram" - you are also listening to it. The circle is complete. I say something. You listen; the energy is dissipated. If you yourself say "Ram" and you yourself listen to it, the energy comes back. You are the speaker, you are the listener.

But be aware of it. It should not become a dead routine. Otherwise you can go on saying "Ram-Ram-Ram" just like a parrot, without any awareness behind it. Then it is of no use. It may create a deep sleep even. It may become a hypnosis. You may become dull. Mm? - Krishnamurti says that those who chant mantras, they become dull, they become stupid. And he is right in a way, but only in a way. If you use any chanting just as a mechanical repetition, you will become dull. Look at the so-called religious people: they are just dull and stupid. No intelligence, no flame in their eyes of life, of aliveness. They just look dead, like lead, heavy. They have not given anything to the world, they have not created anything. They have just repeated mantras.

Of course, if you go on repeating a particular mantra without awareness, you will be bored by it yourself, and boredom will create stupidity. You will become dull, you will lose interest. A certain sound repeated continuously can even create madness. But Krishnamurti is right only in a sense; otherwise he is completely totally wrong. And whenever one judges something by those who are not following it, really, that judgement is not good. Anything must be judged by the perfect example.

The science of japa is not just to repeat. Repetition is secondary. It is just a device to create something of which to be aware. The real thing is to be aware. The basic thing is to be aware. If you build a house, the house is secondary. You build it to live in. And if there is no living, and you create a house and live outside, then you are foolish.

Repetition of a certain name or sound is creating a house to live in. It is creating a certain milieu inside. And if you have created it, you can manipulate it more easily than sudden happenings. And by and by you can become accustomed to it, related to it in a deep consciousness - but the real thing, the basic thing, is to be conscious of it.

The science of japa says that when you become a hearer of your own sound, then you have reached. Then you have completed the japa. And there is much in it. When you see a sound, for example, "Ram", your peripheral apparatus is used in creating it, your vocal apparatus. Or, if you create a mental sound, then your mind is used to create it. But when you become alert about it, that alertness is of the center, not of the periphery. If I say "Ram", this is on the periphery of my being. When I listen to this sound "Ram" inside, that is from my center - because awareness belongs to the center. If you become aware in the center, now you have the light with you. you can dispel unconsciousness.

Mantra can be used as a technique; there are many, many methods. But any method is just an effort towards awareness. You cannot escape awareness. You can start from wherever you like, but awareness is the goal.

These are all methods of will. It would be better if I talk of at least one method of surrender, of the path of surrender. These are all methods of will: you will have to do something.

Hui-Hai was a Zen Master. When he had come to his Teacher, the Teacher said, "Choose! Would you like methods of will? Then I will suggest something to you. Or, are you ready to surrender? If you choose the path of will, then you will have to do something. I can only be a guide."

On the path of will, there are only guides. There are not really Gurus, Masters. There are simply guides. They instruct you; you have to do everything. They cannot do.

So the Teacher said, "If you want to proceed on the path of will, then I will be your guide. I will give you instructions and techniques; then you will have to do everything. If you choose surrender, then you have not to do anything. I will do it all. Then you have just to be a shadow to me, just follow me. Then no doubts, no questioning; then no inquiry. Whatsoever I say you do."

Hui-Hai chose the path of surrender. He surrendered himself to his Teacher. Three years passed. He would sit by his Teacher's side. Sometimes the Teacher would look at him and would go on looking at him, continuously looking at him. The look was so penetrating and so deep that it would haunt Hui-Hai. When he was not even with his Teacher, the look would follow him. He would sleep, but the eyes would be with him, the Teacher would be looking at him. He couldn't even dream because the Teacher was there.

For three years continuously he would sit by his Teacher's side, and suddenly the Teacher would look at him and penetrate, and his eyes would go deep. Those eyes became a part of his being. He could not be angry, he could not be sexual - those eyes would be present there. He would be haunted. The Guru was there. He was always in his presence. Then after three years, the Guru, for the first time, laughed. He looked at him and laughed, and then a new haunting began. Then he would hear the laughter. And even in sleep, suddenly he would hear the laughter and he would begin to tremble. For the three years again, the Guru would suddenly look at him and laugh, and that was all.

This continued for three years, that is for six years altogether. Then suddenly one day, after six years the Guru touched his hand. He would look in his eyes, take his hand in his hands, and Hui-Hai would feel the Guru's energy flowing in him. He became just a vehicle, a vessel. He would feel the warmth, the energy, the electricity, everything flowing in him. It was impossible to sleep because the Teacher was there. And every time, every moment, something was flowing.

Then, after another three years - that is, after nine years altogether - the Guru embraced him. And Hui-Hai has written that with that day the haunting ceased. There was no Hui-Hai: there was only the Teacher. That's why the haunting ceased.

Three more years passed - that is, twelve years - and one day the Teacher touched Hui-Hai's feet. That day the Teacher also disappeared, but Hui-0Hai became an Enlightened man. many would ask him later on, "How did you gain it?" He would say, "I cannot say. I only surrendered. Then everything was done by him, and I do not know what happened!"

When you surrender yourself, you can surrender only the conscious mind, not the unconscious. You don't know about it, so how can you surrender it? If I tell you to surrender your money, you can only surrender that money which you know you have. How can you surrender that money that is hidden in a treasure which you don't know that you have? So only the conscious part of the mind can be surrendered, and the conscious mind is the barrier.

If I say something to you, the conscious mind begins to think whether it is right or wrong, true or false. And even if it is true, it begins to wonder, "What is the purpose of this man saying it? What does he want from me?" Many things, many questions, many doubts will come, and the conscious mind creates a resistance.

If you know anything about hypnosis, then you must have come to know and feel that in hypnosis the person who is hypnotized will do anything if ordered - anything, any absurd thing. Why? In the hypnotic state the conscious mind is asleep. Only the unconscious is there. The barrier has been broken. In hypnosis your conscious mind has gone to sleep it is not there. So in hypnosis, if you are a man and I say, "You are a woman," you will behave like a woman. You will walk like a woman; you will be shy; your movement will become more graceful, more womanly; your voice will change.

What happens? The conscious mind which can create doubt - which will say, "What nonsense you are telling me! I am a man, not a woman" - is asleep. And the unconscious has no doubts. The unconscious is absolutely faithful. It has absolute faith, trust. There is no logic in the unconscious. It cannot resist, so whatsoever is said is believed. There is no problem. That's why so much emphasis is placed on faith - shraddha. Faith is of the path of surrender; it belongs to the path of surrender.

Whatsoever is said is believed on the path of surrender. It is day, and the Teacher says it is night - believe it! Why? Because this believing will break the habit of questioning, resistance. Ultimately it will destroy the so-called barrier of your conscious mind. And when the conscious mind is not there, the Teacher and you become one. Then you can work - not before that. Then it is a telepathic relationship. You are in a deep communion. So whatsoever the Guru thinks becomes a part of you. Now, whatsoever he wants to do, he can do it. You have become just totally receptive to him. Now there is not a fight between the Teacher and the disciple; otherwise it is a fight. There is a communion, a deep meeting.

So Hui-Hai said, "I do not know. I simply surrendered; that is what I did. The only thing I did was this. I said to myself that I have tried and I have struggled, and I have not found any bliss. It may be that I am the cause of all my misery. If I choose the path of will, again I will be choosing, again I will be practising, again I will be there. Whatsoever the result may be, I will be present in it. And if I am the misery - and I have tried everywhere and I have done everything - it is better to drop myself and see what happens. So I told my Teacher that I would surrender, and after that I simply waited for twelve years. I don't know what he was doing, but many things were happening. I was transforming - I was being transformed and changed."

Our unconscious minds are related. They are one. We are islands only as far as our conscious minds are concerned. Otherwise we are not separate: the deeper mind is one. If I am talking to you, then there are two ways to convey my message to you. One is through your conscious mind. It is a method of struggle because your conscious mind will go on thinking about it. It cannot accept. First it has to negate.

The first thing the conscious mind says is "no", and "yes" comes only in a very faltering way. "Yes" comes only as a helplessness. you cannot say "no", you cannot find any way to say "no", you are unable to say "no", you have no argument for saying "no", so you say "yes". Your "yes" is impotent, weak, just out of helplessness. The moment you find another reason to say "no", you again feel to be vibrating with energy. Your "no" is very potent. "Yes" is just dead; "no" is alive with the conscious mind.

The conscious mind is a conflict continuously - defending, afraid, looking around with fear. It cannot trust; it cannot say yes wholeheartedly. Even if it says it, it is always a temporary thing. It is waiting for the real no to come, and then it will say it. So you can convince a man, but you cannot convert him. you can argue with a man, you can silence him with argument, but you cannot convert him.

He may feel that he cannot say anything more, but inside, deep down, he knows that something must be found somewhere, which will prove that you are wrong and he is right. It is only that at this moment he is unable to say no, so he accepts. But this acceptance is not a conversion. It is just a temporary defeat, and he feels hurt and he will take revenge. This is one way which has become prominent in this age. If you have to convey something, you have to convey it through the conscious mind.

In ancient days, quite the contrary was the method. Drop this conscious mind and convey directly through the unconscious. Time is saved, energy is saved and unnecessary struggle is saved. That's what is meant by surrender. Surrender means now you say, "I am no one any more. Now, whatsoever you say I will follow. I will not decide to follow again and again. Now there will be no question withe very decision. I decide, finally, ultimately."

With the conscious mind you have to decide again and again every moment. With the surrendering mind, you have decided once, you have chosen, then you drop. And when you don't doubt, when you don't question, then by and by the conscious mind loses its grip because it is a mechanical thing. If you don't use it, it becomes non-functional. If you don't use your legs for twelve years, they will become non-functional. Then you won't be able to walk.

So Hui-Hai continuously waited in a surrendering mood for twelve years. He could not think, he could not argue, he could not say 'no'. 'Yes' became the mood, yes became potent, yes became strong, alive. 'No' was just not there.

In this state direct transformation is possible. Then the Teacher can do much. Then he penetrates into you. Then he begins to transform you. And the more you are transformed form inside, the more conscious you become, but that is not your work.

In Indonesia there is now a modern method: they call it LATIHAN (from subud methods). It works miraculously. One has not even to surrender to the Teacher - one simply surrenders to the Divine. But the surrender must be total. One surrenders to the Divine and says to the Divine, "Now, finally, I say whatsoever you want to do with me, do! I will not resist. Now, whatsoever happens I will follow it as if it is your instructions." And if a man begins to feel trembling, he trembles. If he begins to feel screaming, he screams. If he feels to run, he runs. He begins to behave in mad ways. But no resistance must be there. Whatsoever happens, he accepts it and flows with it, and within days he is a transformed being, a different being.

When you are totally receptive to the universal, the cosmic force, it transforms you. Then you need not transform yourself. Then you are carried in a very strong current. If you are not fighting, you are just carried. The Cosmic is present here, but you resist. You stand against it. Everyone is fighting against the Cosmic. Everyone feels himself more wise.

Leave it to the Cosmic. Surrender to the Cosmic, or surrender to the Teacher - it makes no difference. The real thing is surrender. But it is a very mad path - a very mad path - because what will happen is unpredictable. It may happen, it may not happen. You cannot know beforehand. You proceed in an unknown, uncharted sea, and you are not the master. You have surrendered. This surrendering breaks down your resistance, your ego. And when the surrendering is complete, there is light, there is awareness, there is flowering. You have flowered suddenly.

So when I say there is a possibility of surrendering, sometimes it looks as if it will be easy - as if the path of will must be arduous and the path of surrender must be easy. It is not so. To some the path of will is easy, to some the path of surrender is easy. It depends on you; it does not depend on the path. No path is easy, no path is difficult. It depends on you! If the path suits you, it is easy.

Hui-Hai was not doing anything, so it was easy in a way. But you know what he did? He surrendered. It was done in a single moment. But can you do it, this waiting for twelve years? Distrust and many things will come in. Someone will say, "Why are you wasting time with this man? He is a fraud. he has deceived many. many have come and gone. What you are doing here?"

Hui-Hai would listen and would not react. And this is not the end: the Teacher would even create many, many things which would bring doubt. Suddenly Hui-Hai would think, "What am I doing here? Am I mad with this man? And what is he doing? If he just proves to be a fraud after twelve years, then my life is wasted." And this man, this Teacher, would create many situations in which doubt would arise, and the mind would begin to function. But Hui-Hai would not listen to the mind. He would say, "I have surrendered. I have surrendered and now there is no going back." It is not easy. Nothing is easy, but things become more difficult if you choose wrongly.

And lastly, I would like to say that it is natural that we always choose wrongly. There is a reason for it. Because the opposite is always attractive, it is natural that we choose wrongly. All choice is basically sexual - so a man chooses a woman, a woman chooses a man, and the same goes on and on in every dimension. If you are a man of surrender, it is more possible that you will choose the path of will because will will be more attractive: it is the opposite. If you are a man of will, you may choose the path of surrender because the other, the opposite, is more attractive. It happens in many ways.

Mahavir is a man of will, but his followers, his authentic followers, will be men of surrender because he will attract the opposite. He is a man of will but he will attract those who are men of surrender. So if followers decide by themselves they will begin to follow Mahavir's ways, and this will be a wrong thing because Mahavir is a man of will and his path is the path of will. If they just begin to follow whatsoever Mahavir is doing, they will be wrong and ultimately frustrated. If they leave it to Mahavir, then Mahavir will always suggest to them the path of surrender. This is the problem.

So when the Teacher is dead and a long time has passed, it becomes a deep cause of confusion for the followers - because now the Teacher cannot decide: you have to decide. So someone becomes attracted to Buddha and he begins to follow Buddha's path as Buddha did. This is going to be wrong. If Buddha could have been asked, he would have suggested a different thing.

The last dying words of Buddha to Ananda are, "Ananda, be a lamp unto yourself. Don't follow me: appa DEEPO BHAVA - Be a lamp unto yourself! Don't follow me." Ananda was following Buddha continuously for forty years. It was not a small period. For his whole life Ananda had followed devotedly, and no one could say that his devotion was imperfect in any way or incomplete. It was total. But Ananda, the most devoted follower, could not achieve Enlightenment, and the death of Buddha was nearing.

One day Buddha said, "Now, today I am going to leave this body."

So Ananda began to weep and said, "What will I do now? For forty years I have been following you in every single detail." Even Buddha could not say, "You have not followed and that's why you have not reached." He had followed and he was sincere, but he was still an ignorant man.

Buddha said, "Unless I die, Ananda, it seems you will not reach."

"Why?" Ananda asked.

Buddha said, "Unless I die, you cannot return to yourself. You are too much attached to me, and I have become the barrier. You have followed me, but you have forgotten yourself completely."

You can follow a Teacher blindly and still reach nowhere - if you are just following the Teacher according to you. Remember these words: "according to you." Then you have not surrendered. Surrender means now you are no more there to decide. The Teacher decides. Even if the Teacher is not there, surrender to the cosmic energy. Then the cosmic energy decides. The moment you surrender, your gates are thrown open and the cosmic flood enters you from everywhere and transforms you.

Look at it this way: my house is filled with darkness. I can do two things. Either I have to create light in my house - then I will have to create it; or, I can open my doors and the sun is outside. I just open my doors, and my house becomes a host to the Divine guest, to the sun, to the rays. Then I become receptive and the darkness disappears.

On the path of will, you have to create the light. On the path of surrender, light is there - you have just to be open. But when the house is dark and when everywhere there is darkness, one fears to open doors - one fears even more. Who knows whether light will enter or whether thieves will come in? So you lock up. You close every possibility so that nothing enters in. That is the situation.

Either create light by yourself: then the darkness disappears. Or, use the cosmic light: that is always there. Then open yourself! Be vulnerable! Then don't depend on anyone. Then be ready, whatsoever happens. If you are ready no matter what may happen, then darkness itself becomes light. With that readiness, nothing can remain dark. That very readiness transforms you totally.

 

The Death of Socrates

Question 2:

There can be visions, and they can be indicative of advanced states. But with one condition: the more advanced you are, the less you feel that you are advanced. The more you move towards being Enlightened, the less there is the ego which says, "I am enlightened." Spiritual advancement is a very humble progress.

So one thing: visions can be indicative of higher states, but only if you feel more humble. If you begin to feel that you are advanced, that shows another thing: that those visions are not spiritual but simply projections of the mind. So this is the criterion. If you have really seen Krishna in visions, you will be no more if this is authentic. If really this is a realization, you will be effaced completely. You will say, "Krishna is and I am not."

But if you are strengthened by this vision, you are not effaced. If, on the contrary, you become stronger and now you say, "I am an adept, an advanced soul - I am no ordinary man," that shows that it was not an authentic vision but only a projection of the ego.

The ego is strengthened by its own projections. Otherwise, it is destroyed. A spiritual vision destroys the ego completely. A projected vision, your own imagination, your own dream, strengthens you. It becomes a food; your ego is more vitalized.

The Upanishads say, "Those who say they know, they know not. Those who claim that they have realized, they are far from it." So when I said that a certain man came to me and said, "I am a very advanced soul, I am an adept. I have this vision and that," when he related his vision it was as if someone was relating his riches or degrees, his academic degrees, as if someone was carrying his diplomas.

This is impossible. His visions were just created visions, created with his own mind. If your mind is creating your visions, your mind will be strengthened. If visions are coming from beyond, your mind will be destroyed. The visions are not of the same sort.

But in the beginning you cannot decide this difference in the visions. You cannot decide whether you have really seen Krishna or whether it was just your dream. you cannot make out any difference - because if you have seen the real, you will not see the dream; if you have seen the dream, you will not see the real. So how can you compare? You cannot compare. But one thing is certain: you will show what type of thing you have seen. If this vision strengthens your ego, then it was a projection. If it effaces you completely, destroys you completely and you are no more, then it was authentic and real. Only this is the criterion.

So with a religious person, if he becomes more egoistic as he advances in his religiousness, it shows that he is on a false path - he is imagining things. And if the more he advances, the more he withers away, feels himself no more, if he feels to be a non-entity and ultimately a nothingness, if he becomes just a void, that shows that he is progressing.

Visions can show, but they always show something only in reference to you, not independently. If you ask whether a vision of Krishna is real or not, I cannot say anything. I will ask, "Real to whom?" To Meera it was real: it effaced her completely; she was no more. Someone was asking me, "When Meera was poisoned, why did the poison not affect her?" I said to him, "Because she was no more."

Even poison needs someone to be effective. It killed Socrates - Socrates was not Meera. Socrates was a philosopher, not a sage; Socrates was a thinker, not a Buddha. Socrates thought, contemplated, argued. He was a great intellect, but not an Enlightened One. If he should argue with Buddha he would win; Buddha would be defeated. He was a rare genius. So when you think about socrates, intellectually he is incomparable, but existentially he is nothing before a Buddha. A Buddha will laugh about this arguments and a Buddha will say, "You go around and around, and you will never reach the center. And whatsoever you are talking is just talk. You argue. you are a logical man and you argue better than me," a Buddha will say, "but you are wasting your life in arguments."

Socrates is not a person who has gone beyond his ego. He is a rare man with a rare, penetrating mind. Even if he talks about ego, that understanding is intellectual. He is not an existential, experienced man. So because of Socrates, the whole West has come to an intellectual c1imax - because of three men: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The originator is Socrates. Socrates was the teacher of Plato and Plato was the teacher of Aristotle. These three have created the whole Western mind. This whole science, logic, philosophy of the West, belongs to these three men. They are the creators.

Buddha belongs to a totally different dimension. Socrates is an intellectual giant, but Buddha would have just laughed at him. He would have said, "You are a giant amidst children. You have reached a c1imax in intellect, but intellect is a barrier. You have touched the ultimate in intellect, but intellect leads nowhere."

Socrates is different, Meera is different. Meera is a surrendered soul - totally surrendered, totally effaced. When the poison is given to her, she is not drinking it. Krishna himself is drinking it. There is no difference now, no distinction. And if this trust is there, poison will become useless. This seems miraculous, but it is not so miraculous. In hypnosis, if a deeply hypnotized person is there and you give him poison telling him that this is not poison, it will not affect him. What happens? If you give him ordinary water and say, "This is poison," he will die. This is total acceptance. Even in hypnosis this can happen.

In 1952 they had to make a law in America - an anti-hypnosis law. you cannot hypnotize anybody now in America. It is illegal, because one student died in a university. Four students were hypnotizing him. They were just students of psychology, so they stumbled upon books on hypnotism. They just tried it as a game. They hypnotized one boy - their partner - in a room, and they suggested many things and he followed them. They said, "Weep! Your mother is dead!" and he wept. They said, "Laugh and dance! Your mother has arisen again!" and he laughed and danced. And then one boy said, with no ulterior motive, "You are dead." and the boy fell down dead. Then they tried in every way to tell him, "Now awaken! Now you are alive!" But then there was no one to listen. He was already dead.

This is total acceptance, and they had to make a law against hypnosis because of it. Only a practitioner - a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or someone who is doing research, a doctor - only these can now practice hypnosis.

If in hypnosis this can happen, why not with a Meera? A Meera has surrendered her conscious mind - the same which is surrendered in hypnosis. She has surrendered it totally. Now she is no more; only Krishna is. If there is not a single doubt when she is taking the poison and her hands are not trembling, if she is not thinking that "This is poison and I may die," if even this thought is not there, she will not die. She takes it as a gift from her beloved, from her Krishna. That is also a gift. Everything is from him, so she takes it as a gift. She drinks it, feels good, begins to dance. The poison has disappeared.

Even to work, the poison needs your mind. If there is no mind, it is very difficult for it to have any effect. A Meera can escape; Socrates cannot escape. He was a logical man. He knows that poison will kill him. Meera was illogical - absolutely illogical.

I will relate to you the death scene of socrates. The poison is being made outside. Socrates is lying on his bed and his disciples are there. He says to one disciple, "Now it is time. At six the poison must be given." He is a very mathematical man, so he says, "It seems they have not prepared it yet. Go and ask them why it is so late. The time has come and I am ready."

Then the poison comes. He takes the poison. Then he says, "My legs are feeling numb. It seems the poison has begun to work. Now the poison is coming up." He goes on relating. He is a keen intellect. Even in death he is experimenting. He is a scientific thinker. He says, "Now the poison is coming up. Now half of my body is dead." He is a rare man. He is not ordinary.

The disciples are weeping, so he says, "Stop! You can weep later on. Look at this phenomenon, this progressing poisoning. Soon. I think, my heart will be affected. And I wonder if, after my heart is affected, my mind will work. So now it will be decided whether the heart is the main center or the mind." He is a very keen mind, and he is observing, relating.

When his heart is affected, he says, "I feel that my heart is sinking, going down. Soon I think I will feel, but I will not be able to relate anything because my tongue is getting numb, dead. Friends, now there will be an experience which I will be able to experience but which I will not be able to relate. It will be inexpressible because my tongue is going dead." Even up to the last, his eyes were saying something, relating something. In the last moment someone asks him, "Socrates are you not afraid of death?" He doesn't say, "I am not afraid because I am immortal" - no! He doesn't say, "I am not afraid because I am going to meet the Divine" - no! He doesn't know any Divine and his mind cannot believe in any Divine.

He says, "I am not afraid for two reasons." This is a logical mind. He says, "For two reasons I am not afraid. One: either Socrates is going to die completely; then there will be no one to be afraid. Or, Socrates is not going to die at all and the soul will live, so why be afraid? These are the two reasons why I am not afraid. Either I will die, really, as atheists say. Materialists say that there is no soul, and they may be right. If they are right, then why be afraid? I will be dead completely, and no one will be there to suffer death, no one will be there to be afraid of anything. Socrates will be no more, so why be afraid?

"Or, it may be that religious persons are right" -- this is the "or"; this is logic -- "they may be right! Then only the body will die and Socrates will live, so why be afraid? If only my body is going to die and I will be there, why waste time in fear? Let me go and see."

But he is not in an experience of what is going to happen. He is a perfectly logical mind. His fearlessness is not that of a Buddha or that of a Mahavir or that of a Meera or even that of a Charvak. His fearlessness is not like that of a Charvak because Charvak said, "It is decidedly so that I am going to die totally, so I am not afraid." this is a decisive conclusion. A Mahavir knows, "I am not going to die, so there is no question of fear." But this again is a decision, a concluded thing. Mahavir knows.

Socrates is different from both. He says that either a Charvak will be true or a Mahavir will be true. But whether one is true or the other is true, in both the cases it seems meaningless to be afraid. So he is a very different mind, and he has created the very quality of Western thinking. He was not religious. He was down to earth, scientific.