The_Ultimate_Alchemy_

With awareness the whole mechanism changes. With awareness, every moment your inner center is sending its energy to every pore of your body. And your body is not a small thing. It is a miniature universe: as above, so below. Everybody is a small universe. And when I say ”small”, I feel guilty – because, really, it is not small. It is as vast as the universe. But because of our language, there are problems. The universe appears vast and your body appears small.

What is the difference between the two? They say that if we can throw out all space from the Earth, if we can compress it and throw out the space, if the vacant space in it is thrown out, our Earth will be just like a small ball. If we can throw out all the empty space from the Himalayas, they can be put into a match box. The material is not much, the matter is not much. The matter is very small, only the emptiness in it is vast.

So how to judge whether a thing is big or small? A very small thing can be blown up to any bigness if we put space in it. If we put as much space into your body as there is in the earth, you will be like the earth. So all the differences are of spaces – empty spaces. No difference is there really.

But when I say ”a small universe”, I mean only this: that everything that exists in the universe exists in you also. Whatsoever may be the measure, exactly everything exists in you also. So when your solar center, your sun, releases energy, it releases it in two ways. Either you are unconscious: then it releases it into sex, anger, greed and other diseases. Or if you are conscious, through this consciousness heat is transformed into light: then it is released as light. Then you are under a shower of light continuously. Your every pore, your every cell, is bathed. There is a continuous shower of light. When this happens, your inner center begins to become cooler and cooler and cooler, and ultimately it becomes the coldest spot.

Kailash

Hindus have a myth that Shankara lives on Kailash. Kailash is the coldest mythological spot – the coldest peak, the highest peak – and it is always covered with snow. This is just a symbolic way of saying that you have the coldest spot – a Kailash – in you. But you can know it only when the heat is transformed into light – never before. And the more you become aware, the more heat is transformed into light, and you begin to feel a moon inside. You begin to feel a cool, silent pool.

This sutra says,

In the beginning, of course, you will feel it and miss it. It is just like the first day’s moon. Then there is the second-day moon, the third-day moon. You feel it and it is gone; then it grows again; then comes the full-moon night. Just like this, this inner spot of coolness grows. As your consciousness grows, your heat is transformed into light. As your periphery becomes enlightened, as your each and every cell is filled with light and becomes aware and awake, this inner moon grows. Sometimes you feel it and sometimes you miss it. Sometimes there is an inner cool breeze, and you know something has happened inside. You feel it, but then you miss it again. Then it goes on growing. Ultimately, when there is no unconsciousness left and your total energy has become light, you come to know the full moon.

Buddha has talked about this full moon in negative terms because it is the negative pole. So Buddha says that when this inner silence is achieved, it is Nirvana. The word is very meaningful in reference to this sutra. Nirvana means ”cessation of the flame”: a lamp is burning and then the flame disappears.

When your heat is totally transformed into light, there is no flame. That is why the moon symbol is used. The moon has light. but no flame. That is why its light is cool. It is without flame, without fire. Light is there without any flame. The flame has disappeared. When one first becomes acquainted with the sun, the light becomes like a flame, burning hot. So if you analyze the life, the inner life, of a Buddha or of a Jesus or of a Mahavir, many things will become apparent which are ordinarily hidden. For example, whenever a person like Buddha is born, the early life will be very revolutionary – because the moment one enters the inside, the first experience is a fiery flame. The more Buddha grows older, the more the inner coolness is felt, the more the moon becomes perfect. Revolution is lost. Then Buddha’s words are not revolutionary.

Jesus couldn’t get this opportunity. He was killed when he was still a revolutionary. That is why, if you compare Buddha’s sayings with Jesus’ sayings, there is a clear-cut distinction and difference. Jesus’ sayings look like that of a young male – hot! Buddha’s early sayings are also like that, but he lived to be eighty. He was not killed.

There are reasons. And one reason is this: India always knew that this happens: whenever a person goes in, the first expression is fiery, revolutionary, rebellious. That is why India never killed anyone. That is why India could never behave as Greeks behaved with Socrates and Jews behaved with Jesus. India knew much. It has known many, many such persons. India knows it is natural that whenever a Buddha enters into himself the first experience will be revolutionary. He will burst open, explode into a fiery flame. But then the flame will disappear, and ultimately there will be only a moon – silent, cool, with no fire but only light.

Jesus was killed. That is why Christianity has still remained incomplete. Christianity was based on early Jesus – on Jesus when he was just a flame. That is why Christianity has remained incomplete. Buddhism is complete. It has known Buddha in all stages. It has known Buddha’s moon in all stages – from the first day to the full-moon light. This crucifixion has been unfortunate for the West. It has proved one of the greatest misfortunes in history that Jesus was killed when he was only thirty-three, just a flame. The flame would have turned into moonlight, but the opportunity was not given. And the reason was only this: that the Jews were not aware of the inner phenomenon.

India knew many, many Buddhas, and it is always the case that whenever someone enters in, he first sees the fire, the flame, and the revolutionary spirit comes up. But if one goes on in and in, it dissolves, and then there is only silence – a moonlight silence.

This sutra says, ”Accumulation of the nectar of the inner full moon...” This silence. this cool silence of the moon, Hindus have called nectar, the amrit, the elixir. It is not to be found somewhere else. It is in you. This nectar is in you! Once you are established in this nectar, once you are in this pool of cool moonlight, then you are a full moon inside. Then you have known both the polarities: you have known life, you have known death, you have known the sun, you have known the moon. You have known both the polarities – life and death. And once you have known both you have transcended both. That is why it is called the nectar amrit.

Now you will not die. Now you are drunk with elixir; you cannot die. But you will not be alive in the old sense either. You have died in the old sense; you are reborn in a new moon. Now death will not be a death and life will not be a life. Now you will be beyond both.

I have heard about Tanka, the Zen Master, who one day declared before his disciples that Buddha was never born. He said, ”This whole story is just false; this whole Buddha legend is just false. He was never born.” His disciples were just perplexed. What did he mean? It seemed he had gone mad. Every day he had himself been teaching the life of Buddha, his birth and everything, and suddenly one day he said, ”This whole thing is nonsense. He was Never born.” Then he left the platform and went into his hut.

The disciples gathered around his hut and asked, ”What are you saying? What about that which you were always teaching us for your whole life?”

Tanka said, ”Tanka is no more. He was never born, so the whole legend is false. The teaching of Tanka and your listening to Tanka is just false. Someone has created a fiction. Do not be deceived.”

Then they were even more perplexed. It may be that Buddha was not born, but Tanka was already there standing beside them. Tanka laughed and said, ”That which is born, that which was born, was not Buddha.”

In India we have two names: ”Gautam Siddharth” is the name given by the parents. Then one day he became Enlightened: his consciousness flowered, bloomed. Then he used another name – ”Gautam the Buddha”: ”Buddha” means the Enlightened One. This second name doesn’t belong to Gautam at all. Gautam is just a situation. In his place Buddha happened, and this Buddha did not really happen on the day of his Enlightenment. He had been always there, but it had been recognized only on this day. Gautam had come to recognize on that day something which was always there – the Buddha.

This inner phenomenon is beyond birth and death. It is never born and never will it die, because that which is born can die and that which is not born cannot die. Death needs birth as a prerequisite, as a necessary prerequisite. You cannot die if you are not born. With this inner phenomenon – when sun and moon are balanced, when the dialectical process is finished, when the synthesis is complete – you come to feel in yourself something which is eternal.

That is why this sutra says, ”Accumulation of the nectar of the inner full moon is NAIVEDYA.” Now you have become food yourself. Now you can offer yourself to the Divine. Now you are food. Now you are eternal. And why is it called ”food”, NAIVEDYA? Because when you are eternal, you can become food for the eternal. And by ”food” the ordinary meaning is also implied. When you take food in, it becomes one with you. It becomes your blood, it becomes your bones, it becomes you: you are your food! You are what you eat. So when you have come to know this inner reality, the eternal reality, you can offer it as food to the universe, to the Existence.

By this is meant that now you can become the bones of the Universe, you can become the blood of the Universe. Now you can be one with it just like food becomes one with you. The meeting is complete because you have become food for the Divine. Then you are naivedya. Then the offering can be accepted.

But you cannot offer your body as the food. It will be food, but for the vultures, not for the Divine. This cannot be offered as food for the Divine. Your body comes out of the earth and goes back to the Earth. It can only be eaten by the earth again: ”Dust unto dust." It can only return to dust, so this body cannot be offered to the Divine.

One young seeker came to Gautam Buddha. He said, "I have come to offer myself to you. Accept me.”

Buddha asked him, ”What are you offering – your body? But that is already offered and the earth will claim it, so how can you offer it to me? What are you offering? Tell me exactly!”

The man was confused. He said, ”Whatsoever I have I offer to you ”

Buddha asked him, ”What do you have? What is it that belongs to you? Do your thoughts belong to you? They belong to the society; your mind belongs to the society. Your body belongs to your parents, to the earth, to the sky, to water, to fire, to many things to the five elements. What do you have that you can offer to me?”

The man could not answer because he had nothing else. He could not think of anything else, so Buddha said, ”Do not offer now. First find out what you are. And the moment you find it, it is already offered. Then there is no need to offer.”

When you find the inner balance that is known from finding the sun and finding the moon, only when you know both, they balance each other, and in that balance you escape from duality. And then the third angle of the triangle is touched. For the first time you are above yourself: you are the inner Self. Now you can look down at yourself – at your sun, your moon, your body, your soul, your positivity, your negativity, your male, your female. Now you can look down at yourself – at the whole world of duality, at multidimensional duality – and now you can become naivedya, the food offering.

But now there is no need even to offer: you have already offered. Now there is no need to ask to be accepted: you are already accepted. You are one. Just as food becomes one with you, you become one with the Divine. And by ”Divine” I mean the Whole, the Totality, everything – the very Existence.

So what to do? Transform heat into light: that is the mantra.

Transform heat into light! Do not use heat as heat: use it as light. When you think anger is coming to you, close your eyes and meditate on what anger is. Dig deep inside and find out the source from where it is coming. What we are doing ordinarily is just the opposite. When we get angry we begin to think about the object of anger, about who has created it, and not of the source of anger, from where it is coming. When you get angry, close your eyes. This is the right moment to meditate. Close your eyes, go in, and find out from where this anger is coming. Follow it to the very source. Go deep, and you will come to the source of heat from where the accumulated energy is bursting forth to go out.

Observe it; do not indulge in it – because if you indulge in it, it will be thrown out without being transformed. And do not suppress it – because if you suppress it, it will be thrown back to the original source which is overflowing. It cannot absorb it. It will be thrown back again with a more forceful movement. So do not suppress it and do not indulge in it. Just be conscious. Move inward to the source. This very movement slows down the process; this very observation transforms the quality of anger, because this calm observation is an antidote.

Anger and calm observation are different phenomena. When this calm observation enters into anger, it changes the energy, the very chemical composition of it, and the heat becomes light. That is the change: heat becomes light! Then the anger is neither thrown back to the original source which cannot contain it because it is overflowing, nor is it thrown to the object in a wastage, a foolish wastage. Then this energy neither moves out to the object of anger, nor is It suppressed back to the original source. With observation this energy becomes diffused. It moves to the periphery of your body as light. When diffused, it moves as light, and the very anger becomes ojas, the very anger becomes a light, an inner light.

So do not be disturbed and disappointed if you have much anger. That only shows you have much energy. A person born without anger cannot be transformed. He has no energy. So be happy that you have energy, but do not misuse it. Energy can be misused, it can be transformed. Energy in itself is neutral. It will not tell you what to do with it – you have to decide. This is the secret science of inner alchemy – to change heat into light, to change coal into diamond, to change baser elements into gold.

These are just symbols. Alchemists were not really concerned with changing baser metals into higher metals, but they had to hide and they had to make an esoteric, secret symbology, because it was very difficult in past ages to talk about the inner science and not be murdered or killed. Jesus was killed: he was an alchemist. And the Christianity that developed, that followed Jesus, went quite against him. The Christian Church began to kill and murder those who were again trying alchemy.

This word ”alchemy” is very beautiful. Our ”chemistry” is born out of alchemy. The word ”chemistry” comes from ”alchemy”, but ”alchemy” itself is a very deep and significant word. The word ”alchemy” comes from Egypt. The old name of Egypt was ”Khem” and ”Al Khem” means ”the secret science of Egypt”. The Egyptians were deep in the alchemy of inner transformation, in how to transform the inner chemistry.

Many Egyptian mummies are preserved. They are the oldest, most ancient mummies, and still scientists are not able to probe into how they were preserved, why and how they were preserved. But that ”why” we can guess, and our so-called history is nothing but a guess. But about esoteric things it is always a fallacious guess.

Why they were preserved is difficult to understand, but more problematic is the ”how”, by what chemical process they were preserved. They are still as fresh as if they had just died. If there had been any outer chemical process, our chemistry could know it; we are more chemically developed than old Egypt. The real thing is that these bodies were preserved not by any outer chemical process, but by inner alchemy.

If your sex energy, which is the source of life, can be transformed inwardly, then your body can be preserved for any length of time very easily. If your sex energy is transformed, then your body can be preserved even for a million years. If the cells of your body lose sex then the body can be preserved, because birth comes through sex and death comes through sex. Your freshness, the youngness of the body, comes through sex, and then deterioration comes through sex.

These mummies were preserved not just as historians say or as Egyptologists say, that man has always been thinking in terms of ego to preserve himself. With the kings, the emperors, for example, that is not the case. Totally different is the secret. They were preserved only so that they would be recognized when their souls would be born again. When a man is born again in another body, if his old body is preserved it helps to further his inner progress.

But the old body will be useful only if it was transformed by alchemy; otherwise it is of no use. If you change your body inwardly, your body then becomes a laboratory. It is a lab; it is not just a body. If you have been working inside, experimenting inside, then you know this body from the inside, not only from the outside.

We know our bodies only from the outside. Whatsoever the mirror tells is our only knowledge – it is from the outside. Our knowledge is as if someone goes around a house and looks at it, and then says, ”I know it.” He has never come in; he has never looked from the inside. We look at our bodies from the outside, never from the inside.

If you begin to transform your anger, your sex, you will begin to look at your body from the inside. Then your body is a great experiment, a great laboratory, very complex, and then you will want to preserve it for further growth. When one enters another body, one can learn much from the old body. It was a great experiment in old Egypt, and many things were done with the body. They were successful in some things, failures in some things.

If you have again a new body, a new laboratory, then if the old is preserved you will not have to begin again from ABC. If the old is preserved, this is a record. Death had interrupted, but now you can proceed. You are not to proceed from the beginning again; you can proceed from the point where death interrupted in the last life.

So only Egyptians and Tibetans have preserved bodies for this reason, but only those bodies which were undergoing deep inner experiments. Otherwise it is useless to preserve your old body. Otherwise` you will not even be able to recognize it.

Lenin’s body is preserved in Moscow, but he would not even recognize it. If he were born again, he would not even recognize it! His body was never used as a laboratory; he never knew it. He was just acquainted with it in the mirror, never with the body itself.

This process is alchemical: observe anger, and anger is transformed into light; observe sex, and sex is transformed into light. Observe any inner phenomenon which creates heat. Observe it, and through observation it becomes light. And if your every heat phenomenon is transformed into light, you will come to feel the inner moon. And when there is no heat left, then you have accumulated the nectar of the full moon.

And through this nectar you become immortal. Not in this body, not with this body: you become immortal because you transcend life and death both.

Then you are naivedya: then you are a food offering to the Divine – to the Total.

 

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