Toward the_Silence of the Innermost_Center

    NISCHALATWAAM PRADAKSHINAM

There is electricity in the clouds. It has always been there, but we were ignorant in the past. The electricity in the clouds would only create fear in us and nothing else. Now we know about it. Now the electricity has become our slave, so there is no fear. Otherwise, the Vedas say that when God is angry with you, he will send thunder, he will send storms, lightning. When he is angry this will happen with you. It was God’s anger, they said. Now we have channelized it. Now it is no more God’s anger; it is no more at all related with God. We are manipulating it. Thus, knowledge becomes power.

Inner anger is just like electricity, like lightning. Previously the lightning in the clouds was God’s anger; then we came to know about it. Knowledge became power, and now there is no ”God’s anger” in the clouds. Your anger is again an inner electricity. The moment you know about it, there will be no anger inside you. And then you can channelize your anger: it will become your servant.

A person who has no real anger will really be impotent. Anger is energy. If you do not know it, it becomes suicidal. If you know about it, you can transform the energy. You can use it. Then it is just your slave. And the same for everything. Your thoughts, they are energy; they can be used. If you become silent, you become the master of your thoughts. At present you have thoughts, but no thinking – many thoughts and no thinking. When you have no thoughts, you have become the master of your process of thinking; you can think for the first time. Thinking is energy, but then you are the master.

With the discovery of the inner still point, you become the master. Without this discovery, you will remain a slave to your instincts, to anything. Knowledge will lead you in, so make yourself a laboratory. You are a universe. Find out what your energies are: they are not your enemies. What are your energies?

Choose your chief characteristic. Remember this: choose the chief characteristic. Find out whether anger is your chief characteristic or sex or greed or jealousy or hate. What is your chief characteristic? Find out first, because if you go on without knowing the chief characteristic, it will be a difficult process to go in – because the chief characteristic has your energy in it. It is the central thing; everything else is just secondary to it, subsidiary to it.

If your anger is the chief characteristic, then all else will be just a support to it. Find the center of your energies, and then begin to be aware of it. Then forget everything else. If greed is your chief characteristic, then be aware of greed and forget everything else. When greed is solved, everything else will be solved. And remember this: do not imitate anyone else because another’s chief characteristic may be a different thing.

Because of this imitative tendency, we create unnecessary problems. For example, Buddha had one thing to transform. Mahavir had another thing, Jesus something else. If you blindly follow Jesus, then you will begin to fight with the chief characteristic of Jesus rather than with your own, and that will misguide you. If you blindly follow Buddha, then again you are misguided. Understand Buddha, understand Jesus, but find your own disease and concentrate your awareness on that particular disease. If the main disease is solved, minor diseases will dissolve by themselves.

We go on fighting with minor diseases. Then you can waste lives together. You change one minor disease and another minor disease will be created, because the source of energy, the central source of your disease, remains intact. So you can only change a disease if you are working with minor diseases. We are even afraid to find out what our chief disease is.

Many, many persons come to me, and I am surprised, always surprised, that whatsoever they say is their problem is never the case. They even deceive about their problems. When I work with them, when I observe them and they become more frank, more naked, then new problems arise. One old man was here of about fifty-eight or fifty-nine. He would always come and talk about meditation and how to do it, and he said, "I am interested now continuously for twenty-five years in meditation. That is my only interest.”

But that was not the case at all. Meditation was not his interest at all. By and by, it became apparent to him also that he was not interested in meditation. He was interested in a reputation that he is a great meditator. Reputation was his interest; ego was the problem. And he would always say, ”Ego is not my problem: I am a humble man. But too many thoughts is my problem, so how to dissolve these thoughts?” The chief characteristic was only one thing: the thought of ego was the problem. And he was always avoiding the chief disease.

So you can go on cutting the leaves of a tree, and the tree will again put out new leaves. You cut one and the tree will supply two, and the tree will be greener for your effort, more green. You cannot cut leaves; you can only cut roots. Leaves and roots are different things. When I say ”the chief characteristic”, I mean the root. When I say ”minor problems”, I mean leaves. And the problem becomes more difficult to solve because leaves are apparent and roots are underground. They are the source of all the leaves. You cut the whole tree, and a new tree will come out because the roots are intact. You cut the roots, and the tree will disappear automatically. There is no need to be bothered with the tree.

But the roots are underground: your chief characteristic will always be found underground. So whatsoever you say is your problem, is never the case. It can be taken for granted that that is not the case. Rather, quite the opposite may be the case, because we go on hiding our inner weaknesses. And just to distract the mind, just to forget the real problems, we create minor problems.

One day a man came to Mulla Nasrudin. He was an old man from the village – wise in everything, wise in all worldly ways. The man was suffering from a cold for a long time. He was very ill. He had tried every medicine, but to no avail. So he asked Mulla if he could advise what to do. Mulla said, ”You go to the lake at midnight.” The night was ice cold and the lake was just freezing. ”You take a bath, then be naked and run around the lake.”

Winds were blowing fast; the man said. "What are you suggesting? I am suffering from a cold. I may become even more ill: I may get pneumonia.”

Mulla Nasrudin said, ”If you can get pneumonia, I have the medicine for it. But for a common cold there is no medicine. If you get pneumonia, then I can help you.”

In your inner world, you go on avoiding problems which you cannot solve. You try to forget problems which you cannot solve; you begin to focus your mind on problems which you can solve. Because of that, your chief diseases go underground. Ultimately, you are not even aware of them, and you go on fighting with phoney problems that are not real problems. These phoney problems can take much energy and can dissipate your energies, destroy them; and you remain the same because you go on fighting with the leaves.

So the first thing toward inner stillness is to find out what the root of your problems, of your conflicts, of your tension, is – what the root is! Do not think about how to solve it, because if you think of solving you will be afraid. Do not think of solving it. First, there must be a simple finding out of what the chief characteristic of the mind is, what the center of the mind is. No question about solving it, no idea about changing it, just take a simple inventory to find out what the chief problem of your mind is.

Do not go on escaping from the chief characteristic and do not create phoney problems. It will not help. Even if you solve them, it will not help. Once you know the chief characteristic of your mind, just be aware of it: how it works, how it creates inner nets, how it goes on working inside and influencing your whole life. Just be aware. Still do not think about how to change it, because the moment you begin to think about how to change it you miss the opportunity of being aware.

Anger is there, greed is there, sex is there: do not think of changing them, do not think of transcending them. They are there: be aware. Transcendence is not a result, it is a consequence. Remember this difference. The difference is subtle. Transcendence is not a result: it is a consequence! What do I mean? You cannot think about transcendence; you cannot think how to go beyond mind. By thinking, you will never go. If I say, ”Be aware,” I do not mean that by awareness you can go beyond mind.

Someone was here just the other day. He is struggling to be in meditation, to be silent. But he is in such a hurry that this hurry becomes the obstacle. Whenever he comes, he asks "How many days more will it take? I have been doing meditation for three months, and nothing has happened yet.”

So I told him, "Unless you leave this constant hankering over when it will happen, it is not going to happen at all.”

The man said to me, ”I can leave it; I will not hanker after the result. But tell me, if I leave this, then when will it happen? I can leave this; even this I can leave. I will not bother you again. But tell me, if I leave this, then when will it happen?”

So if I say that by awareness you will transcend, do not think that awareness is a method and that because you want to transcend then you will transcend. Do not think, ”Of course, if awareness is the method, then I am going to practise it; through it I will transcend.” Then you will never transcend. If awareness is attained. transcendence happens. It is a consequence: it comes. If awareness is, then transcendence will come. Then you will go beyond your mind; you will reach the inner center of stillness. But you cannot desire it.

That is what I mean when I say that it is not a result. A result can be desired, but a consequence follows. It cannot be desired! A result can be manipulated, planned, but a consequence cannot be manipulated, cannot be planned. If you are really aware, you will transcend. Awareness is not a method for transcendence. AWARENESS IS TRANSCENDENCE. This constant awareness of your mind dissolves your greed, your anger, your sex, your hate, your jealousy, by and by. They dissolve automatically. There is no effort to dissolve them, not even any intention to dissolve them, not any longing to dissolve them. They are there, so rather than an intention to dissolve them, acceptance is more helpful.

Accept your anger. It is there: accept it and be aware of it. These are two things: acceptance and awareness. And you can be aware only if you accept totally. If you do not accept me, you cannot look at my face. If you do not accept me, you will try to avoid me in subtle ways. Even if I am present in the room, you will look in some other direction, you will think of something else. If you do not accept me, if you reject me, your whole mind will try to avoid me. If you reject anger, you cannot be aware. You cannot encounter it face to face. And when anger is encountered face to face, it dissolves. When sex is encountered face to face, the energy is released into a different dimension.

Encounter your mind and accept it.

The negative teachings, the condemnatory teachings, teachings which are based on struggle, have created this, our so-called world. The whole earth is a madhouse, and everyone is just on the verge of being mad.

 

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