The Complementariness_of Opposites

Question 2:

One thing: when you really become free, when you really become free, you cannot even feel freedom. It is always felt against slavery. So when you really become free, you neither feel freedom nor slavery. Then you are free. If you feel freedom, it means still some slavery is there. Freedom is felt only against slavery. When you enter the real freedom, you enter an existence which is lived moment-to-moment, neither as unfree nor as free.

But the very formulation of the question carries our mind with it - the very formulation: "When shall we be free?" We are against something: "When shall we be free?" And especially from sensual things. But why? The old mind, the old preachings, the morality, the religions - they all teach that as long as there is sensuality you will never be free. They say that as long as sensuality is there you can never be free - sensuality must go; then you will be free. That's why we ask.

Really, as far as I am concerned, sensuality will not be there but you will be more sensuous when you are really free. You will be more sensitive, and your every sense will become so cleansed that you cannot even conceive what these senses can give. But there will be no sensuality. Sensuality is something else: it is not sensuousness. Sensuality means a hankering; it means a constant obsession.

For example, one who is constantly thinking about food, he cannot meditate, he cannot pray, he cannot study. Whatsoever he is doing, the food is an obsession inside. He will go on enjoying food in his imagination. Even if he begins to think about heaven, he will think about food: "What type of food will be available in heaven?" So such persons have said that in heaven there is a KALP-VRIKSH - a tree under which you sit and think anything and it is supplied instantaneously, immediately. You think of food and the food is there. You think of a woman and the woman is there. You think of wine and the wine is there. It is a wish-fulfilling tree. Those who imagined this tree must have been very, very deep in sensuality. In the Koran it is said that in heaven there are rivers of wine. So whosoever has thought this must have been deeply sensual - a hankering, such a hankering, that even in Heaven....

When Islam was developing in Arabian countries, homosexuality was just an accepted norm. So only in the Mohammedan heaven is homosexuality allowed - in no other heaven. It is said that not only beautiful girls, but beautiful boys will be available. This is sensuality. You cannot even conceive of heaven without your lusts.

I don't say that there will not be... I am not saying that 'maybe'! - but why do you think about it? I am not concerned at all with what is there or not, but why can your mind not conceive anything except that which you are after? You have to make provisions and you have to make pre-arrangements, plannings. This is sensuality.

And this is the paradox: the more sensual you are, the less you will be sensitive, because sensitivity is always in the present and sensuality is always in the future. So if a person is constantly thinking of food, when the food is given to him, he will not be able to feel the bliss. Really, on the contrary, he will be taking food and thinking of other food. A person who is constantly thinking of sex will not be able to go deep into sex. When he is going into sex he will be thinking of other women, or other men, and then there is a vicious circle.

The less he enjoys, the more he goes after thinking, and everything becomes cerebral, mental. He eats with mind, not with the body. His sex becomes cerebral, his everything becomes cerebral. In everything his mind takes over, and mind cannot do anything except thinking. So mind goes on thinking and thinking. And, really, such a guard is created around the mind that he becomes less and less sensitive. The senses lose life, and the mind exploits everything from the senses. usurps everything. And the mind cannot do anything! It can only think - and thinking cannot give you contentment.

So the more you feel discontent, the more you think. Then you are in a vicious circle, and ultimately you become absolutely incapable of feeling anything through the senses. This is sensuality: senses prostituted by the mind; or mind having taken all the senses into itself. This is sensuality.

A really free consciousness will not be sensual but will be sensitive - deeply sensitive and sensuous. Really, when a Buddha sees a flower, he sees the flower in its totality, in its total beauty, in its total aliveness. The colour, the fragrance, everything, Buddha sees in its totality. He will never think again about this flower - he will never be sensual. He will not hanker again to see it more and more, repeatedly. He will never think again about this flower - not because he is not sensuous, but because he is totally sensuous, and he has lived this experience so deeply that there is no need to repeat.

The need to repeat comes because you cannot live any moment totally - so you eat, and again you have to think to repeat it; you love, and you have to think to repeat it. You are less concerned with living than you are concerned with repetition. This repetitive hankering is sensuality.

A Buddha is not sensual in this sense - he is deeply sensuous. His every sense-door is clear, transparent. He feels everything, he lives every moment totally, he loves every moment totally. And he experiences it so totally that there is no need to repeat, so he never thinks about it. He goes on and on, and every moment is so rich that there is no need to repeat any old moment. There is no need! The need is created because you are incapable of living in moments which are present. You are incapable, so you go on.

If I pass through this city and think, "No - London is better; I must be there," it means only that I am not capable of experiencing this city. That is why the memory comes. Otherwise, if I can live in this city, there is no need. And remember that this type of mind, when it goes to London, will not be able to live there either, because this type of mind cannot live in the moment that is there. This mind will think about Tokyo, about Calcutta, about other places - and we go on missing.

Live! So a totally free mind will not even be aware of freedom - first thing. It will be so free that it cannot be aware of freedom and it will not be aware of any bondage. It will be aware only of a life which is moving - moving moment-to-moment. And this movement is unmotivated. That is what is meant by freedom. This movement is unmotivated! If you move with a motivation, then you are bound.

If I am saying something with some motivation, then I am not free. The motivation is my bondage. And if I am just saying it with no motivation - not even this much: that you may understand or may not understand; not even this much: I must make you understand it - then it has a freedom, unmotivated. Then it is a bliss in itself to have talked, to have said, to have expressed. It is enough!

If there is no motivation beyond it, then it is a free movement. So in freedom you will not live through motivation: you will live directly, immediately. That immediate living is freedom. But there is no awareness of it because you cannot feel it. You can feel it only against some bondage.

Sensuality will not be there, but senses will be there - and more acute, more alive. And this is as it should be. A Jesus can love more. Really, only a Jesus can love - unmotivated. His very being is love. Senses are there - really, for the first time, without the disturbance of the mind, they function totally. Eyes see as they should see. They see without any thought, they see without any prejudice.

They see that which is! Nothing is projected. Ears hear that which is said with no distortion, because the mind is not there. Hands touch that which is with no desire, with no lust, with no motivation, with no longing. Hands just touch - then touch becomes pure, total. With no disturbance, they simply touch, then touch goes deep. Then even by a hand the soul is touched; the hand becomes a passage.

Senses are there - more purified, more acute, more authentic - but sensuality is not there, because such a man lives so deeply that he never wants to repeat. And even if something is repeated, he never feels it is repeated - because everything is so new!

The less you live, the more you have to substitute for it by your dreaming mind. The less you live, the more the mind has to substitute for it. The more you live, the less is the need of the mind to substitute. When you live totally, mind is not needed. When you are in love, why should the mind be needed? When you are eating, why should the mind be needed? When you are walking, why should the mind be needed?

You can move without the mind. You can eat without mind coming in, with no thought process. You can touch someone, you can kiss someone, you can embrace someone, without the thought process coming in. And then you live totally. And any moment that is lived totally, you will never long for it to be repeated, because you long only for something which has remained incomplete.

The mind goes on back again and again to complete it. The mind is a very great perfectionist - everything must be perfect! So if something is left incomplete, the mind goes back again and again.

It is just like when one of your teeth falls out and then you continuously touch the spot with your tongue to feel the absence - the whole day long. You will be bored, but again, unaware, you will touch the absence. You know now that the tooth is not there, but why does this tongue go now constantly to the spot and it has never done so before? When the tooth was there, this tongue never touched it. Why, when the tooth was there, was the tongue not concerned at all with touching it? When the tooth is not there, the tongue goes on, goes on, goes on - it becomes mad. Why? Because now the tongue feels something incomplete, some gap, and the gap calls again and again.

So with any experience lived totally, you will never go again to feel it in the mind. If you have really loved someone, there will be no memory - memory in the sense that the mind is going constantly to it again and again. If you have not loved, then the absence is felt. You feel guilty and you feel that something has been missed, so it must be substituted - then the mind goes on thinking.

The freer you are, the less is the need to substitute with mental activity. And sensuality is substituting. You understand me? Sensuality is substituting something that you are missing. So when consciousness is really transformed and becomes free, there is no feeling of freedom. When consciousness is transformed and becomes holy, there is no feeling of holiness. So a real saint is one who doesn't know that he is a saint. Only sinners know that they are saints. Only sinners know!

A really good man never knows that he is good; only bad ones know they are good. How can you feel your health? Only an ill person, a diseased person, begins to think about health. When you are healthy, you are just healthy. Really, you never remember that you are healthy. You begin to feel about the body only when you are ill. So if someone goes on talking about health, be confident that he is ill.

It happens that in persons will go on creating many theories about health. Ill persons will constantly talk about health and will become experts. They will become experts! It happens daily that if you are ill and cannot get beyond your illness, sooner or later you are going to be a naturopath. If medicines are not going to help, what to do? Constant thinking and reading about health will make you a naturopath. So naturopathy is good in one way because every patient becomes a doctor. If you are really healthy, then there is no need! And the same applies everywhere. When you are free, you don't feel it; when you are good, you don't feel it; when you are moral you don't feel it.

And, secondly, when you are free you will live moment-to-moment totally. In a general way this can be said. We can never be particular because it will depend. It will depend! For example, Mohammed married, and he married nine women. We cannot conceive the same about Mahavir; we cannot conceive the same about Buddha. Buddha was married and he left his home, but Mohammed married nine women. So if you ask a Jain, he cannot say that Mohammed is a Realized soul.

How can he be? And the same is the case with Mohammedans: they cannot conceive how these "escapists", Mahavir and Buddha, were Realized souls - because whenever someone is Realized he is not afraid. He can marry nine women, and this Buddha leaves even one, escapes. Why?

Jains cannot conceive that Krishna was an Enlightened One, because he was just so ordinary, doing such ordinary things! Love is one of the most ordinary things, and he was loving and singing and dancing and fighting and doing everything. So how can he be Enlightened? Jains think that Krishna died and went to the last hell - the seventh hell. According to them, he is now in the seventh hell.

He was the greatest sinner possible, because he seduced Arjuna for the fight, for the war. They say Arjuna was just on the verge of being a mahatma. He was just trying to escape when this fellow Krishna seduced him and forced him to fight. So in Jains' eyes this man Krishna is the most violent person - and he is suffering in hell.

This happens, this is natural. This is natural because we become obsessed with types. Then we cannot allow another type to have Freedom, Enlightenment. This depends! The type, the individuality, goes to the very end, to the very peak. It becomes purified, but it goes on. So a Buddha may feel that now he need not be attached with any woman. It depends on him. It depends - and he is free to move in his way. And a Mohammed may think quite differently, and he is free to move in his own way. And everyone moves, when free, in his own way. You cannot force a type.

For example, Mohammed was not at ease with music at all. He could not be; that was his type. But then Mohammedans think that anyone who loves music is just a sinner, so in a Mohammedan mosque you cannot play music. But Mohammed loved perfume very much, so Mohammedans continue to love perfumes. A very poor Mohammedan, particularly on religious days, will also use perfume sometimes. Perfume is as sensuous as music - even more. So what is the difference? Perfume is music for the nose and nothing else, and music is perfume for the ears and nothing else. But it depends on the type!

When Mohammed became free, totally free, Enlightened, his "type" began to move freely in his own way, and a sudden burst and a sudden feeling for perfumes came - unmotivated. But when followers come, they create motivations. They begin to think that some reason must be there. Nothing is there as a reason. It is simply the freedom of a type.

Meera goes on singing and Chaitanya goes on dancing from village to village. Mohammed cannot conceive: "What nonsense are you doing? Dancing - how is it related with Divine Realization?" And a Chaitanya cannot conceive how you can remain without dancing when that 'Friend' comes. How can you remain without dancing? A Chaitanya cannot conceive how a Buddha likes sitting when the Divine has come to the door: "How can you go on sitting like that when the Light has descended? You must go dancing! You must become mad!" But these are types, and one must be aware to allow every type to be there. Then the world is richer.

So I cannot say what will happen to you when you are free - what senses will become more purified, what senses will begin to be expressive of your soul. No one can say; it is unpredictable. One thing is certain: sensuality will not be there. Senses will be there - more perfect, more pure - and purer will be their experience and deeper. The sensitivity will be there, but no sensuality.