The Treasure

LIFE is a search, a constant search, a desperate search, a hopeless search...a search for something that one knows not what. There is a deep urge to seek but one knows not what one is seeking.

And there is a certain state of mind in which whatsoever you get is not going to give you any satisfaction. Frustration seems to be the destiny of humanity, because whatsoever you get becomes meaningless the very moment you have got it. You start searching again.

The search continues whether you get anything or not. It seems irrelevant what you have got, what you have not got - the search continues anyway. The poor are searching, the rich are searching, the ill are searching, the well are searching, the powerful are searching. the powerless are searching, the stupid are searching, the wise are searching - and nobody knows exactly what for.

This very search - what it is and why it is there - has to be understood. It seems that there is a gap in the human being, in the human mind; in the very structure of the human consciousness there seems to be a hole, a black hole. You go on throwing things into it, and they go on disappearing. Nothing seems to make it full, nothing seems to help towards fulfillment. It is a very feverish search. You seek it in this world, you seek it in the other world; sometimes you seek it in money, in power, in prestige, and sometimes you seek it in God, bliss, love, meditation, prayer - but the search continues. It seems that man is ill with search.

The search does not allow you to be here and now because the search always leads you somewhere else. The search is a projection, the search is a desire: that somewhere else is what is needed, that it exists but it exists somewhere else, not here where you are. It certainly exists, but not in this moment of time; not now, but somewhere else. It exists then, there, never herenow. It goes on nagging you; it goes on pulling you, pushing you, it goes on throwing you into more and more madness; it drives you crazy and it is never fulfilled.

Have you ever asked yourself what you are searching for? Have you ever made it a point of deep meditation to know what you are searching for? No. Even if in some vague moments, dreaming moments, you have some inkling of what you are searching for, it is never precise, it is never exact. You have not yet defined it. If you try to define it, the more it becomes defined the more you will feel that there is no need to search for it. The search can continue only in a state of vagueness, in a state of dreaming; when things are not clear you simply go on searching, pulled by some inner urge, pushed by some inner urgency. One thing you do know: you need to search. This is an inner need. But you don't know what you are seeking.

And unless you know what you are seeking, how can you find it? It is vague - you think it is in money, power, prestige, respectability. But then you see people who are respectable, people who are powerful - they are also seeking. Then you see people who are tremendously rich - they are also seeking. To the very end of their life they are seeking. So richness is not going to help, power is not going to help. The search continues in spite of what you have. The search must be for something else. These names, these labels - money, power, prestige - these are just to satisfy your mind. They are just to help you feel that you are searching for something. That something is still undefined, a very vague feeling.

The first thing for the real seeker, for the seeker who has become a little alert, aware, is to define the search; to formulate a clear-cut concept of it, what it is; to bring it out of the dreaming consciousness; to encounter it in deep alertness; to look into it directly; to face it. Immediately a transformation starts happening. If you start defining your search, you will start losing your interest in the search. The more defined it becomes, the less it is there. Once it is clearly known what it is, suddenly it disappears. It exists only when you are not attentive. Let it be repeated: the search exists only when you are sleepy; the search exists only when you are not aware; the search exists only in your unawareness. The unawareness creates the search.

Our senses are all extrovert. The eyes open outwards, the hands move, spread outwards, the legs move into the outside, the ears listen to the outside noises, sounds. Whatsoever is available to you is all opening towards the outside; all the five senses move in an extrovert way. You start searching there where you see, feel, touch - the light of the senses falls outside. And the seeker is inside.

This dichotomy has to be understood. The seeker is inside but because the light is outside, the seeker starts moving in an ambitious way, trying to find something outside which will be fulfilling. It is never going to happen. It has never happened. It cannot happen in the nature of things - because, unless you have sought the seeker, all your search is meaningless. Unless you come to know who you are, all that you seek is futile, because you don't know the seeker. Without knowing the seeker how can you move in the right dimension, in the right direction? It is impossible. The first things should be considered first.

So these two things are very important: first, make it absolutely clear to yourself what your objective is. Don't just go on stumbling in darkness. Focus your attention on the object - what you are really searching for. Because sometimes you want one thing and you go on searching for something else, so even if you succeed you will not be fulfilled. Have you seen people who have succeeded? Can you find bigger failures anywhere else? You have heard the proverb that nothing succeeds like success. It is absolutely wrong. I would like to tell you: nothing fails like success. The proverb must have been invented by stupid people. Nothing fails like success.

It is said about Alexander the Great that the day he became the world conqueror he closed the doors of his room and started weeping. I don't know whether it really happened or not, but if he was even a little intelligent it must have happened. His generals were very disturbed. What has happened? They had never seen Alexander weeping. He was not that type of man, he was a great warrior. They had seen him in great difficulties, in situations where life was very much in danger, where death was very imminent, and they had not seen even a tear coming out of his eyes. They had never seen him in any desperate, hopeless moment. What has happened to him now - now when he has succeeded, when he is the world conqueror?

They knocked on the door, they went in and they asked, 'What has happened to you? Why are you crying like a child?'

He said, 'Now that I have succeeded, I know it has been a failure. Now I know that I stand exactly in the same place as I used to be in when I started this nonsense of conquering the world.And the point has become clear to me now because there is no other world to conquer anymore - otherwise I could have remained on the journey, I could have started conquering another world. Now there is no other world to conquer, now there is nothing else to do, and suddenly I am thrown to myself.'

A successful man is always thrown to himself in the end and then he suffers tortures of hell because he wasted his whole life. He searched and searched, he staked everything that he had, now he is successful - and his heart is empty and his soul is meaningless and there is no fragrance, there is no benediction.

So the first thing is to know exactly what you are seeking. I insist upon it because the more you focus your eyes on the object of your search, the more the object starts disappearing. When your eyes are absolutely fixed, suddenly there is nothing to seek; immediately your eyes start turning towards yourself. When there is no object for search, when all objects have disappeared, there is emptiness. In that emptiness is conversion, turning in. You suddenly start looking at yourself. Now there is nothing to seek, and a new desire arises to know this seeker. If there is something to seek, you are a worldly man; if there is nothing to seek, and the question 'Who is this seeker?' has become important to you, then you are a religious man.

If you are still seeking something - maybe in the other life, on the other shore, in heaven, in paradise, in moksha, it makes no difference - you are still a worldly man. If all seeking has stopped and you have suddenly become aware that now there is only one thing to know - 'Who is this seeker in me? What is this energy that wants to seek? Who am I?' - then there is a transformation. All values change suddenly. You start moving inwards. Once you have started moving inwards.... In the beginning it is very dark. It is very, very dark because for lives together you have never been inside - your eyes have been focussed on the outside world.

Have you watched it? Observed? Sometimes when you come in from the road where it is very sunny and the sun is hot and there is bright light - when you suddenly come into the room or into the house it is very dark because the eyes are focussed for the outside light, for much light. When there is much light, the eyes shrink. In darkness the eyes have to relax. A bigger aperture is needed in darkness; in light a smaller aperture is enough. That's how the camera functions and that's how your eye functions. The camera has been invented along the lines of the human eye. So when you suddenly come from the outside, your own house looks dark. But if you sit a little while, by and by the darkness disappears. There is more light; your eyes are settling.

For many lives together you have been outside in the hot sun, in the world, so when you go in you have completely forgotten how to enter and how to re-adjust your eyes. Meditation is nothing but a re-adjustment of your vision, a re-adjustment of your seeing faculty, of your eyes. In India that is what is called your third eye. It is not an eye somewhere, it is a re-adjustment, a total re-adjustment of your vision. By and by the darkness is no longer dark; a subtle, suffused light starts being felt.

And if you go on looking inside - it takes time - gradually, slowly, you start feeling a beautiful light inside. But it is not aggressive light;it is not like the sun, it is more like the moon. It is not glaring, it is not dazzling, it is very cool; it is not hot, it is very compassionate, it is very soothing, it is a balm.

By and by, when you have got adjusted to the inside light, you will see that you are the very source. The seeker is the sought. Then you will see that the treasure is within you and the whole problem was that you were seeking for it outside. You were seeking for it somewhere outside and it has always been there inside you, it has always been here within you. You were seeking in a wrong direction, that's all.

Everything is available to you as much as it is available to anyone else, as much as it is available to a Buddha, to a Baal-Shem, to a Moses, to Mohammed. It is all available to you, only you are looking in the wrong direction. As far as the treasure is concerned you are not poorer than Buddha or Mohammed - no, God has never created a poor man. It does not happen, it cannot happen - because God creates you out of his richness. How can he create a poor man? You are his overflowing, you are part of his being, how can you be poor? You are rich, infinitely rich, as rich as God himself.

But you are looking in the wrong direction. The direction is wrong, that's why you go on missing. And it is not that you will not succeed in life, you can succeed, but still you will be a failure. Nothing is going to satisfy you because nothing can be attained in the outside world which can be comparable to the inner treasure, to the inner light, to the inner bliss.

 

 

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