Towards a Total Flowering of Consciousness

Man is a seed, a possibility, a potentiality. Man is not only what he is - he is also what he can be. Whatsoever man is, it is just a situation, just an opening, just a becoming. Much is hidden, and the hidden part is more than the manifested part. That's why I say man is a seed. He can grow, and man can be only if he grows.

If a seed remains a seed, that means death. If a seed is not growing, then it is dying. And you cannot remain in between. Either you have to grow or you have to die. There is no midpoint. Grow or die! There is no other alternative. The seed is just a situation to grow. And to grow means to transcend, to grow means to die on a particular level and to be reborn on another. What is growth for a seed? The seed must die as a seed - only then is the tree born. The possibility begins to become actual.

A seed can die in two ways. It can just die without growing; then it is negative death. Or, a seed can die to grow; then it is positive death, and positive death is the door to more life. Positive death means dying for something - dying to grow, disappearing from one plane to appear on another. Man can remain a seed, and many men die negative deaths without growing, without transcending themselves, without disappearing from one plane to appear on another.

Nietzsche has said somewhere that man is only when he transcends himself: you are only when you are disappearing from below and appearing above. It is a continuous process of dying to the material and being born more conscious. But a seed can be satisfied and can remain satisfied to be a seed. It is even difficult for a seed to conceive of what he can be. Even to dream about it seems impossible. How can a seed dream of what he can be? Even to conceive of the possibility of being a tree will look just absurd. How can a seed be a tree? Even if the tree is there just by the seed, the seed cannot conceive that this tree was once a seed, and that "I also can be a tree." Buddha has said, "I cannot give you Truth, but I can give you a dream. Look at me, and your potentialities, your possibilities, will begin to stir. Something will begin to throb for the future; something within you will begin to long for that which can be." A Buddha is a tree - not only a tree, but a tree which has come to flower. We are seeds. Think of man as a seed. Then what can be the flowering? For man's tree, what can be the flowering? Flowers of consciousness, of course.

This sutra says:

To be conscious totally - to be conscious! To use the symbol of flower for consciousness is multi-meaningful. It is not only a symbol - because consciousness is factually a flowering in man. When man flowers, comes to his omega point, suddenly there is a burst of flowering. That flowering is of consciousness.

But man as he is is just a seed. He is not conscious, he is not a consciousness. This will be difficult and very humiliating, because we go on thinking that we are conscious. And this is the most fatal belief - dangerous, poisonous - because if you think that you are already conscious, then there is no possibility for you to flower. If a seed thinks and believes that it is already a tree, already flowering, then there is no possibility for the seed to grow. It has deceived itself completely.

Gurdjieff has said that you are in a prison, but you can come to believe that you are not in a prison - that this is your home. You can decorate your prison in such a way that it begins to look like your home. You can even be proud of it, you can boast of it, your chains can become your ornaments. It depends on you. You can interpret, and this interpreting is, in a way, very satisfying, because then there is no need to fight against this imprisonment. Then you can be at ease. It is very convenient.

All human beliefs are conveniences, but dangerous. Because of them the possibility to evolve is nullified completely, negated completely. The prisoner can think that he is not a prisoner, but already a free man. This is convenient to believe because then there is no burden. But then this prisoner can never be free. So Gurdjieff says that the first necessary step towards freedom is to recognize the humiliating fact that you are a prisoner - only then does growth become possible.

The first thing about this sutra that I would like to say to you is: Be completely aware that you are not conscious. This is the first step towards awareness. You are not conscious at all; you live an unconscious life. Whatsoever you are doing is a robot-like thing, mechanical.

For example, you are listening to me. You are listening to me but you are not aware of the fact that you are listening. Now you can become aware after I have said it, but you were not previously. For a moment you can become aware that you are listening to me, but only for a moment and then you will slip again into unconsciousness. And then you will listen to me, but not as a conscious being; you will listen to me like a mechanical thing.

What is the difference? If you are listening to me, you are conscious of me, the speaker; you are not conscious of the listener. Your consciousness is one-arrowed. The arrow is towards the speaker, and you are just in the shadow. The light is focused towards the speaker and you are in darkness.

For a moment, if I say something about it, you can become conscious. But the moment you become conscious of the listener you will become unconscious of the speaker. If you can become conscious of both, if you can have a double-arrowed consciousness - simultaneously aware of the speaker and the listener - then you are conscious.

When I say you are not conscious, I don't mean that sometimes there are not moments when you are not conscious. Sometimes there are moments, but very few. And they show only the possibility, not the actuality. It is just like if you jump and then again you are on the ground.

You can defy the gravitation for a single moment, and again you are under it. It is just like this. Sometimes, in particular situations, we jump out of unconsciousness. For a single moment we are out of the pull of gravitation, but not really out of it because the gravitation is working all the time and will bring you down again. But you can have a feeling of freedom for a single moment; then again you are back on the ground.

In certain dangerous situations you become conscious. Someone has come to murder you: suddenly you are conscious - not only of the murderer, but also of yourself, the one who is to be murdered. Then the consciousness is double-arrowed, but only for a single moment and again you are on the ground. Sometimes in deep love you jump out of your unconsciousness. Then you are not only aware of your lover or beloved: you are also aware of yourself - but only for a single moment, then again you are back.

Suddenly, in some accident, in some deep, touching experience, one becomes aware. But there are very few such moments. You can count them on your fingers. In a long life of one hundred years you can have certain experiences which can be counted on your fingers. They show only a possibility that you can be conscious.

Ordinarily we exist as automata. And, really, we find it convenient to exist as automata: it is very comfortable to exist as automata. You are more efficient when you work on mechanical lines. You need not worry. Your body, your mind, works as a machine; it is efficient. And it is convenient not to be aware, because to be aware will bring such a sensitivity about things around you that it is going to be painful.

To be a Buddha is not only blissful. It is blissful as far as Buddha himself is concerned. He comes to a peak experience of bliss. But at the same time he has to pay very dearly, because he becomes so sensitive that everything around him gives him pain. He suffers because of others' suffering. A beggar meets you: you pass him unconsciously; there is no problem, it is very convenient. If you become conscious, then it is not so convenient. Then you are bound to come to realize that you have a hand in it, you are part of this ugly world. You are responsible for all that is, whether it is a Vietnam war or a Hindu-Mohammedan riot or poverty. Whatsoever is there, if you become conscious you become responsible. It is difficult now to escape. This is the cost to be paid.

So never think that Buddha is just bliss. No one can be. Everyone has to pay a cost, and the greater the experience, the greater the cost is going to be. A Buddha is peaceful, blissful in himself. He comes to this bliss because of being so conscious. But simultaneously, because of so much consciousness, he becomes sensitive to everything that goes on around him - he suffers for it.

So it is convenient to exist as unconscious beings. We go on, we prolong, being sleepy. It is a deep somnambulism. We go on walking, doing things profoundly asleep. Nothing touches us; we are absolutely insensitive. Sensitivity depends on consciousness. The more conscious you are, the more sensitive; the less conscious, the less sensitive. And to be sensitive is dangerous. To be non-sensitive is convenient - so you can move like a dead block, you need not be concerned.

Because of this convenience, we remain seeds. To me, to lose this convenience, to throw this convenience, is the only renunciation. Really, this is the comfort to be thrown - not a house, not a family; they are nothing. This convenience-oriented mind is to be thrown. One has to be sensitive and vulnerable to whatsoever there is; only then can you become conscious.

So the first thing to be understood is why we go on remaining unconscious. There is a reason for it; it has a rationale - because it is convenient. To live a dead life is convenient, to move like a dead corpse is convenient, because then you are not affected, you are not concerned. You have a routine to work and to do from morning to evening. You move in a circle; throughout your life you go on moving in your old pattern. The older the pattern, the less the inconvenience. Ultimately, you are settled in it.

Look at this attitude! If this attitude persists you are not going to transcend the seed. When a seed is transcended it is calling for dangers. A seed is protected, but a plant is not so protected. A plant is always in danger; a seed is never in danger. A seed lives a dead life, but a plant becomes alive, delicate, unprotected. It is dangerous!

A child in his mother's womb is totally protected. The womb is the most comfortable place to be found anywhere - no worry, no struggle for survival; a completely relaxed state. Psychologists say, and they say rightly, that this hankering after peace, equilibrium, harmony, is really a remembering of the womb state - because a child in the womb is just in heaven.

Hindus have a myth of a wish-fulfilling tree - kalptaru - in heaven. Under that tree, kalptaru, the wish-fulfilling tree, there is no gap between demand and supply. You demand, and there is supply - no time gap. You desire, and it is fulfilled.

The womb is a wish-fulfilling tree. There is no gap between wish and fulfillment. The child has not even to desire. whatsoever is needed is fulfilled - no effort, no desire, no tension. The child is in perfect moksha. And if we were to ask a child to leave the womb and come out, if it were up to him, no child would be born. It is dangerous! It is taking a very dangerous step! Going out of the womb is going out of heaven. It is being thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Now everything is going to be a struggle. Now demand and supply are not going to meet so easily and desires cannot be fulfilled so easily. Now there will always be a gap between the desire and its fulfillment. And even when it is fulfilled, it is not going to be a fulfillment - because through its fulfillment many other desires will have been born meanwhile. So it is going to be a constant struggle.

So if it is up to a child to decide whether to leave the womb or not, no child will leave. It is very comfortable - absolutely comfortable. But it is a dead existence. No growth is possible. Growth is possible only when you choose dangers consciously. When you move on unknown paths, you grow. when you take risks, you grow. Just like this, man is again in a womb - the womb of the unconscious. Mm? Try to understand this: the womb of the unconscious. To leave it is a second birth.

In India we call the person who was born again "twice-born" - dwij. The Brahmins were called twice-born only because of this: that the first birth is the birth out of the womb of the mother, and the second is the birth out of the womb of your own unconscious. And unless you are born out of your unconscious and become conscious, you are not a Brahmin. If you are not conscious, you are not a Brahmin. "Brahmin" means one who knows the Brahma, the Ultimate. If you are perfectly conscious, you come in contact with the Ultimate: you become a Brahmin. This second birth is out of your own unconscious.

What is this unconscious? Freud has said that a man is just like an iceberg: ninety percent under water and only ten percent above it - nine parts hidden under water and only one part, one tenth, above it. Man is an iceberg! Only one part is conscious, nine parts are unconscious, and that one part, one tenth, is impotent against the other nine. The greater part is unconscious; only a very small fraction is conscious. That's why you are always pulled by the unconscious, manipulated, maneuvered. You may go on thinking that you are the deciding factor - you are not! The unconscious, hidden mind always decides.

You fall in love. Is it your decision? Is it your conscious decision? Are you in love consciously? You say, "It happened." What does it mean: "It happened"? It means some unconscious forces within you are pulling you. You are just a puppet. That's why, if it has happened, suddenly one day it disappears again. What can you do? You were just a victim; you were never asked. And not only with love: penetrate deep into whatsoever you think, you do, you feel, and you will come to the conclusion that some unknown force goes on manipulating you. You are not. You may deceive yourself that these are your decisions - they are not.

You decide not to be angry, and then there is anger. everyone has felt the impotence of his own decisions. Every moment you feel it. You decide not to do this, and in spite of yourself, you have to do it. Then you go on creating rationalizations. Those rationalizations are again conveniences. You decide not to be angry and you are angry. Then one possibility is that you will go deep, dig deep within yourself and come to a conclusion that you are not capable of deciding anything - you don't have the power to decide, you have no power, you are absolutely impotent.

But this is humiliating, so one never goes to the root - one begins to rationalize. One says, "I had to be angry because it is going to help the person. I had to be angry to change the person. I had to be angry for righteous reasons." Then you create a myth that this is your decision. You are deceiving yourself! Find out whether you have rally ever decided anything. Has anything ever been your decision? The conscious part of the mind is absolutely impotent. The unconscious is so much - nine times more. Your conscious is nothing but an instrument in the hands of the unconscious. So go on deciding whatsoever you like in the conscious. The unconscious is not a bit worried. Whatsoever is to be done is to be done by the unconscious, and when it needs to do it, the conscious is just impotent.

But one has to dig into oneself. This unconsciousness is your womb. You have to grow out of it, transcend it. Otherwise, you are bound to be a slave, you can never be a master; and you are bound to remain just an egg - a seed. You cannot be a tree which can flower. Then the flowering can never be for you.

First begin to feel what this unconscious is, where it is. This is a good start - to be conscious of the unconscious, to be conscious of one's own imprisonment, of one's being a seed. Don't deceive yourself! Don't go on thinking that you are this and that. find out what you really are. Don't create an image.

Gurdjieff has reported a story...

There was a magician who had many sheep. Every day a sheep was to be murdered, killed for his food. And there were many sheep. They would see that every day a sheep is killed, but they would never rebel, they would never go against him. Some visitor was staying with the magician, so the visitor said, "This is a miracle! Every day a sheep is chosen, killed before other sheep, and they have not yet become aware that their day is also to come soon. They can escape! They can revolt!"

The magician laughed and he said, "There is a trick that needs some explanation: I have hypnotized all the sheep. All the sheep are hypnotized, and I have told them in their hypnosis: 'You are not a sheep. You are not a sheep at all. All the others are sheep, but you are not. You are a lion!' So every sheep believes that he is a lion and that every other sheep is just a sheep. So when a sheep is killed no one is bothered, because they are all lions in their own images."

This is a good story. This is the story of the human mind. You go on thinking about what you are not and you go on deceiving yourself about what you are. To recognize the "facticity" of what one is, is the beginning. And that is the only right beginning. So recognize first that your working is unconscious, not conscious. Your love, your hate, your anger, your friends, your foes, they are all part of your unconscious. You are not a conscious being. You have only a very minute part of consciousness. That's why this can be understood: that you are not a conscious being.

If a madman can be taught that he is mad, that means that a part of his mind is still not insane. If a madman can realize that he is mad, that means a part of the mind is not yet mad. But you cannot convince any madman that he is mad. And if you can convince a madman that he is mad, it means you are wrong. He is not mad. At least a part of the mind is still sane. So if you can come to realize that you are an unconscious being, this is good news. It shows that a part is conscious - a very minute part, a very small fragment. But that fragment can be used now.

You can use it in two ways: either in rationalizing that you are already conscious; that's what we are doing. Or, in digging deep and realizing that we are unconscious. That minute part of consciousness, that one-tenth part of the human iceberg, can be used in two ways: one is to go on rationalizing, thinking, imagining, dreaming, that you are a conscious human being; this is what we are doing. Or, you can use it in digging within and recognizing that you are not conscious at all. This is what a seeker is expected to do.

And once you begin to feel that you are not conscious, consciousness has dawned on you. You are on the path. Now much can be done! Once you realize that you are imprisoned and that "this is not my home but a prison", now something can be done so that you can break out, escape. Now devices can be used, now something can be arranged. Now some contact can be made outside the prison. Now the guard can be bribed or something can be done. But nothing can be done if you go on thinking that you are not in the prison, that it is your house, that the prison guard is your watchman and he is in your service. And if you were really born into a prison, it would look like that - as if everyone is in your service. The whole prison establishment seems to be in your service if you were born into the prison. How can you think that this is a prison?

To realize this, that this is a prison, is the first basic step for going out, because then something can be done. So you are unconscious. And this is not a theory - mmm? - this is a simple fact.

And this is not a theology: this is simple science. It is not concerned with religions and their hypothetical mythologies. Now it is a fact of science. That was the reason Freud was despised so much, condemned so much.