Towards a Total Flowering of Consciousness_

Copernicus

They say there have been three revolutions. One was the Copernican. Copernicus said that the earth is not the center of the universe and the sun is not going around the earth, but the earth is moving around the sun. The earth was deposed, the earth was dethroned. It was very humiliating to man's mind, because when the earth was the center, man was the center of the universe. Everything was moving around man and man's earth. Suddenly earth was not in the center at all - not only not in the center, but it was even not a very significant star. It was negligible, as if not. The earth was found to be moving around the sun, and the sun - our sun itself - was found to be moving around some greater sun, so we were not the center.

Then came Darwin, and he said man is related not to the Divine but to the animals. He is not a descendant of God, but linked with apes, baboons, chimpanzees. He is a link in a long animal process. This was the second revolution - a very humiliating one, very ego-destroying. The earth was not the center, and man was not just below the angels - he was just a bit above the animals and nothing more, and even that "above" was not certain. Man was dethroned, deposed. He was just an animal.

And then came the third revolution, that of Freud, who said you are not a conscious being - you are just in the hands of unconscious forces. So Aristotle was absolutely wrong according to Freud, because he said man is a rational being. Man is not! Man is the most irrational animal. Dogs are more rational. All other animals are more rational in the sense that they are predictable. Man is unpredictable - most irrational! You cannot depend on him, because reason is a mathematical thing. If a dog has behaved in a certain way you can predict he will go on behaving this way. You cannot predict man.

And, moreover, he is not rational, because his whole working of the mind is unconscious. He falls in love, he fights, he goes to war, he goes on accumulating money, he goes on being worried without any rationality in it. He is the most mad animal. Only one thing is certain about him which is exceptional, and that is that he believes certain things about himself which are not. That is the only exceptional thing about man.

Animals are down to earth. They don't have any fictions; they are what they are. Man is a dreaming animal; he can dream, and he can believe in his dreams. He can auto-hypnotize himself, and he can be convinced that whatsoever he is imagining is true. So now it is not simply a religious matter to say that man is unconscious. It is now founded on scientific facts.

Kapil

Indian psychology is very much older than the Western. In the West, psychology is just a child. Really, Freud is the father, so only this century has given birth to psychology. But with India, it is a long-standing science. Patanjali is a psychologist and Buddha is a psychologist and Kapil is a psychologist. And it will be good to look at them as psychologists rather than as religious persons, because then different dimensions become clear and then you can really understand what they are saying.

Buddha says that only awareness can make you a man; otherwise you are just an animal. The very word "Buddha" means the "Awakened One". That was not his name. His name was Gautam Siddharth, but Gautam Siddharth was an unconscious being. When Gautam Siddharth became conscious, then he was called the Buddha, the awakened One. Buddha, when he became totally conscious, said not anything about God, not anything about moksha, not anything about Nirvana - he is reported to have said, "Now I am awake. I was asleep; hitherto, I was asleep. Now I am awake!"

Mahavir's name is "Jin". From that word "Jin" the name of "Jain" is derived. "Jin" means "the conqueror". Mahavir said, "I was asleep. Then I was a slave of the unconscious. Now I have become a conqueror, a Jin, because now there is no unconscious to enslave me." All the sutras of Patanjali are just a technology, techniques, to produce more consciousness. The whole of yoga is concerned with how to produce more consciousness in man.

For the East this has been a long-standing fact, a recognized fact, that man is asleep. But now Western science recognizes the fact also. So what to do? If man is unconscious? How to make him conscious? How to make him awake? The first thing is to recognize the fact of unconsciousness in yourself. It is not difficult to recognize that man is unconscious. That is not difficult, because then you are not included. Then "man" is unconscious, not you. But when I say "man is unconscious", I mean you, not humanity.

There exists no humanity, only man - man A, man B, man C. There exists no humanity - only individuals. "Humanity" is just a collective name. You are unconscious. Listen to this fact with a double-arrowed consciousness. I repeat: you are unconscious! Don't rationalize it and don't deceive yourself. Whatsoever you are doing, remember that this is the unconscious working.

Suddenly you have become sexual; remember, this is the unconscious. Now the unconscious is forcing you towards certain acts. don't fight because the fight is also unconscious. Because the society has said, "Sex is bad, evil, sin," that has gone deep into the unconscious. So the unconscious has two parts: one is biological; another is sociological. Instincts are there and social taboos. The society has put many things into your unconscious. They call it "conscience". Certain things are "bad"; certain things are "good". They have forced them into your unconscious.

That's why, if you teach any morality to a child before seven years of age, only then can your teaching succeed. After seven years of age you cannot succeed. That's why every religion is much concerned with children, and every religion has an establishment. Through parents, through family, they condition the mind - when the mind is totally unconscious. Not even a single part is conscious, so there is no resistance. Whatsoever you say to the child, it goes deep into the unconscious. There is no resistance. Once a child is grown, then it is difficult to penetrate into the unconscious.

So whatsoever one learns in the first seven years becomes the background. Then whatsoever you do in your life, even if you go against the society which has trained you and given you your conscience, you will not really be able to go against it. Even in going against it, you will follow the instructions put into the unconscious. Even to rebel against a certain thing is to remain attached to it.

If humanity is to be saved from so-called religious dogmas, it must be made criminal to teach them to children. Don't teach children any creeds, dogmas, fanatic beliefs - don't teach them! Let them grow first. When they become adult, only then - but then it is very difficult. Then the conscious mind has come into existence. It begins to choose and think.

One part is biological, hereditary; another is sociological. There is sex: become aware that the unconscious instinct is forcing your body mechanism towards a particular object, towards a particular act. But don't fight it because that fight is again, from the sociological part of the unconscious which says that sex is sin. Be aware of both, be conscious of both: there is sex, and there is the concept that sex is sin. Both are coming from some place you don't know - from a deep darkness within. Be conscious - don't do anything! Just remain conscious. Try to be in an alert state. Don't fight with the sex, don't condemn it - don't go to indulge in it. Simply remain conscious of the fact that something is happening inside. If you can remain conscious of the fact that something is happening inside. If you can remain with the fact without dong anything, you will feel that your consciousness is growing and penetrating the dark realm of the unconscious.