The Secret_of Totality

Question 3:

The first meaning of "total" is that you are in it without any part outside - with no withholding, with no division. So any method of meditation will do. If you are totally in it, absorbed, not a part standing outside, if you can just cry "Ram" totally with not a part as an observer in you, if you become the cry and not even a part is observing that you are crying "Ram", if you become the cry - then it is total, and then a single cry is enough. There is no need to go on repeating "Ram-Ram-Ram" - there is no need. One total cry in which nothing is left is enough. So only you can decide whether you are total in something or not.

The second meaning of totality is that whatsoever you are doing, whatever technique of meditation, your doing must be without any doubt. A very minute doubt will make it partial; a very small doubt will not allow it to be total. But that also you can decide - whether there is any doubt. We go on doing things with doubts inside. Those doubts kill every effort. It is not so much that you are not reaching because of not enough effort. It is more because of your doubts standing behind. So whatsoever you do. that sceptical part of the mind goes on denying, goes on waiting to be sceptical. Even if you achieve something, the doubting mind will create doubts. Totality means there is no doubt. Effort becomes total.

And, thirdly, we have many layers of energy, so you may be making a total effort on the first layer and you may not be aware of the second layer at all. All the layers should become committed, involved, then it becomes total. So when you are doing with one layer and you feel you are doing, totally, don't be deceived so soon. Go on doing - and when you feel that "Now nothing can be done; I have done everything and there is no energy left," continue! This is the moment: continue! And soon you will become aware that a sudden rush of energy is coming to you from the second layer. A new earth has been broken. Then go on doing this. And when you are totally involved with all the layers, how will you know?

There are signs. One sign is that when all the layers have been broken and your total energy is involved, total energy is involved, you will never feel exhausted. You will never feel that the point has come when "I cannot do more." That feeling always comes when one layer is exhausted. When the second layer is exhausted, that feeling will come again. And there are seven layers. When the seventh is broken, that feeling will never come again - never! You will not feel that "Now I cannot do more." You will go on doing more and more and more, and you will feel that still more is left. Then you are total in it.

The total is never exhausted, remember. Only the part is exhausted. The total is never exhausted! You cannot empty it: the more you empty it, the more it is filled. So whatsoever happens with your totality cannot be exhausted. If love happens with your totality, then love cannot be exhausted. If meditation-happens with your totality, then meditation cannot be exhausted.

I am reminded of Bokuju, a Zen patriarch who Realized, who became Enlightened, when he was twenty years of age. But he continued meditating. His teacher came and said, "Bokuju what are you doing? Now there is no need. I see you have become Enlightened."

But Bokuju said, "But how can I end meditation? No end-is coming. I go on and on and on, and I am not exhausted. So how can I end it? How can I come out of it? I see no end to it!"

The teacher said, "When one falls into the Infinite, there is only a beginning: there is no end. Come out of it. Come out and move! Of course, I know now you cannot come out of it. Move! It will be with you. Don't go on sitting!"

He was sitting for seven weeks continuously after his Enlightenment. He was just sitting. For his teacher, for the monastery, there were seven weeks. He became Enlightened: there was light all around; he was transformed. Everyone became aware that something had happened. His teacher came and went, came and went every day. He waited for when he would open his eyes and he would talk about it, but he was not opening his eyes. Then ultimately the teacher had to stop him and ask him to come out.

Bokuju said, "But how can I come out? It is not ending at all. There is no end to it. And they say, 'You have been sitting here for seven weeks continuously. It is so long!' But I don't remember. I feel as if not a single moment has passed. There has been no time for me."

So when the total energy is there working, there will be no end to it and time will drop. You cannot feel time. You will feel time only with partial energy because it is exhausted. Time is felt only with something limited; otherwise time cannot be felt. Time is really a feeling of limitations. So whatsoever has a limit, you will feel time around it. It is relative.

So this strange phenomenon happens: if your whole day has been vacant without any events, just empty, nothing of any note, nothing worthwhile, the whole day just passed by, then time will seem to be more when it is passing. Unoccupied time will look very long. You will feel that the day is not going to end at all, that it has become so lengthy. But that is only when it is passing. If you remember afterwards, then the day will look very small - because later on you cannot feel the time without events, so the day will look very small.

We feel time around certain things. So when you are on a holiday and many things are happening, on that day the day will look small. Because it was so filled, it becomes comparatively small. But if you remember your holiday when you are back home, it looks very long - because each event spread in a sequence becomes very long.

Bokuju said, "I don't know about time. What has happened lo time? It stopped." Mahavir says that the basic element that changes totally when one enters Samadhi is time - there is a stopping of time.

Someone asked Jesus, "What will happen in your Kingdom of God?" and he said, "There will be time no longer." This is a basic indication that time will stop, because time can be felt only with partial energies.

That's why a child feels time less, because he is more full. An old man feels time more, because he is now empty, emptying. So with an old man time becomes a problem. With a child time is not a problem at all; he lives in a timelessness. And the same happens with civilization: whenever a civilization becomes over-conscious of time, it means the civilization is going, by and by, towards death. Whenever a civilization is absolutely unaware of time, it means it is in its childhood - innocent. It is not old. Time consciousness means death is coming near. So the more death you feel, the more time you will feel.

In India we have not felt time so much because we have a conception of a circle of continuous births. So each time you die, it is not death - again you are reborn. So, really, India destroyed the concept of death totally. It is not a death at all if you are reborn again. That's why India never became time conscious. We are so lethargic, and we can waste time so easily. The reason is that death is not there in the Indian mind; after death there is birth. So time is infinite, and there is no hurry.

But the American mind, the Western mind, has become very time conscious, and the reason is Christianity - because once you say that there is only one life and that this death is going to be the final one, that there is no rebirth, then death becomes very meaningful. And everything has to be taken in reference. If death is so final and occurs only once, time becomes very valuable. It cannot be lost. And a strange phenomenon happens: the more you become conscious of time, the less you can use it. You can only hurry and run. The less you can use it, because you are in such a hurry. And to use time you need a very, very patient attitude, a very slow-moving attitude; then only can you use it.

So when your mind is in a total effort of will, there will be no time and there will be no end to the energy coming. But these are all inner subjective feelings. You can ask, "Can we be deceived?" Yes, deception is possible. But whenever deception is there, you will become aware. The awareness will come in this form: in any inner feeling, any inner realization, if you become doubtful whether it is true or imaginary, then it is certainly imaginary - because the Truth is so self-evident that you cannot doubt it. The doubting mind just disappears.

So sometimes someone comes to me and says, "Tell me whether my kundalini has risen or not. My teacher says my kundalini has risen, so tell me." So I tell them that unless it becomes self-evident to you, do not believe anyone. When that phenomenon happens, you will not go to ask anyone whether it has happened or not. If someone comes and asks you, "Tell me whether I am alive or not," what will you say to him? Certainly he is dead! Even if this has to be asked, then certainly he is dead.

Life is a self-evident fact; no proof is needed. How do you feel your life? Do you have any proof of it? Is there any proof? How do you feel your life? How do you know you are alive? Is there ever a doubt whether "I am alive or not"?

Descartes began in that way. He began to seek some indubitable fact which cannot be doubted, so he went on: God can be doubted, heaven and hell can be doubted, everything can be doubted.  Then ultimately he stumbled upon himself. and he began to think. "Can I doubt myself? Can I doubt about myself? Can I say I am or I am not?" Then he stumbled upon a self-evident truth, and he said, "Even if I say I am not, I am; so I cannot doubt this fact." This fact begins to be his foundation. So he says, "COGITO ERGO SUM - I think, therefore I am. Even if I doubt, I think therefore I am. So I cannot deny it."

Life is a self-evident fact; you cannot doubt it. The same happens when more life happens to you. When you enter more life, when you enter total life, it is self-evident, no proof is needed, no witness is needed, Even if the whole world denies it, you can laugh. The whole world may think you are mad, but you can laugh.

These are self-evident realizations. so I can describe them. But when they happen, you know; when they are there, you know. And the knowing is evident in itself: it needs no outer proof, no outer witness. Your knowing becomes the only evidence.

That's why sometimes mystics seem to be arrogant. They are not. They are the most humble people possible. But they look arrogant, and the arrogance is felt by us because they are so self-evidently true. They won't give you any proofs, they won't give you any arguments, they won't give you any reasons. They say, "I know!"

This looks to us like arrogance, but the same is so if I ask you, "How do you know you are alive?" What can you say? You can say only, "I know!" Is that arrogance? It is a simple fact. How can you express it except by saying, "I know and I KNOW IT SELF-EVIDENTLY. Even for me there are no reasons why I am. I simply am."

These Upanishads are such self-evident statements. They won't argue with you. They go on telling, "This is this." You cannot ask why. You can only ask how. They can tell you how you can achieve this. You cannot ask, "Why? Why is this this?" So the moment you happen to be in totality, in that totality you will know it. And it is such a phenomenon that you can doubt everything except it. You can doubt the whole world - except it. If the whole world stands against it as a witness, even then your feeling of its being true cannot be shaken.

That's how a Jesus can die, a Mansoor can be killed. They can be killed, but they cannot be changed, converted. They cannot be converted! You can kill a Mansoor: you cannot convert him. He will go on saying the same thing. Mansoor was saying, "I am the God." In Mohammedan eyes, that is KUFRA - heresy, egoism. It is not a religious expression. A religious person must be humble, and this Mansoor goes on telling, "I am the God - ANAL HAK, AHAM BRAHMASMI - I am the Brahma." So they killed him. They thought that when they began to kill him he would come back to his senses.

But he went on laughing, and someone asked, "Mansoor, why are you laughing?" Mansoor said, "I am laughing because you cannot kill a God. You cannot kill a God! AHAM BRAHMASMI! ANAL HAK! I am the God!" Jesus says as his last words, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He asked the Divine to forgive all those who were crucifying him because, "They do not know what they are doing." But Mansoor and Jesus, they are very arrogantly certain. That certainty comes from the self- evidentness of Truth. And everything can be doubted, but never a feeling that comes in your totality.

If you are a total will, then you will come to know something self-evident. If you are total surrender, then also you will come to know something self-evident. Even if you are a total doubter, then also you can come to something which is self-evident. But totality is everywhere a basic condition. You must be total in it, wholely into it.

 

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