The Whole and Holy Circle__

Master Lu-Tsu said:

Now the practical point of the whole sutra - very simple, but try to understand it correctly, because mind wants to distort even simple things. Mind is a distorting mechanism.

Why? - because this helps, it brings you in line with the third eye. When both your eyes are fixed on the tip of the nose it does many things. The basic is that your third eye is exactly in line with the tip of the nose - just a few inches above, but in the same line. And once you are in the line of the third eye, the attraction of the third eye, the pull, the magnetism, of the third eye is so great that if you have fallen in line with it you will be pulled even against yourself. You just have to be exactly in line with it so that the attraction, the gravitation, of the third eye starts functioning. Once you are exactly in line with it there will be no need to make any effort. Suddenly you will find the gestalt has changed, because the two eyes create the duality of the world and thought, and the single eye between the two eyes creates the gaps. This is a simple method of changing the gestalt.

That's how the mind can distort it. The mind can say, 'Okay, now look at the tip of the nose. Think of the tip of the nose, concentrate on it.' If you concentrate too much on the tip of the nose you will miss the point, because you have to be there at the tip of the nose but very relaxed so that the third eye can pull you. If you are too concentrated on the tip of the nose, rooted, focused, fixed there, your third eye will not be able to pull you in, because your third eye has never functioned before. Its pull cannot be very great in the beginning. Slowly slowly it grows more and more. Once it starts functioning and the dust that has gathered around it disappears with use, and the mechanism is humming well, then even if you are fixed on the tip of the nose you will be pulled in. But not in the beginning. You have to be very very light, not a burden, without any stress and strain. You have to be simply there, present, in a kind of let-go.

So don't concentrate on the tip of the nose or - the second trick the mind can play... The Master is simply trying to make you alert to all the possibilities, to all the games that the mind is capable of.

First it will say, 'Okay, so the Master says, "Concentrate on the tip of the nose."' He is not saying, 'Concentrate on the tip of the nose,' he is simply saying 'Look. Just a very light, effortless look.' Or the mind can say, 'Okay, if you are just looking at the tip of the nose, then concentrate on the third eye.'

Mind is always in favour of concentration because mind feeds on concentration, lives on concentration. Hence in your schools, colleges, universities, concentration is taught not meditation, because they are all factories for creating the mind; they manufacture the mind.

And then the mind can say, 'Look, this is impossible, the demand is illogical. How can you look in two directions simultaneously, at the tip of the nose and at the third eye? It is not possible, it cannot be done. Don't be foolish!'

Now the third game of the mind - of condemning something as illogical. First it creates a bogus idea and then it starts destroying it. And when it destroys, it has great joy - a very masochistic, sadistic joy. It says, 'Look, this is what he means. Absurdity! First look at the tip of the nose and then look at the third eye - how can you do both, look upward and downward? It is impossible.'

That's all - just as a guide-line, so you are in the field, in the force-field, of the third eye, so that you are very close to the magnetic energy of the third eye. It can't work in any other way. You have just to be present to the magnetic force, in the field of it, and then it takes you in. You need not go in, you need not make any effort to go in; it happens of its own accord.

And another function of looking very lightly at the tip of the nose is this: that it doesn't allow you to open your eyes wide. If you open your eyes wide the whole world becomes available. And there are a thousand and one distractions. A beautiful woman passes by and you start following - at least in the mind. Or somebody is fighting; you are not concerned, but you start thinking, 'What is going to happen?' Or somebody is crying and you become curious. A thousand and one things are continuously moving around you. If the eyes are wide open, you become masculine energy, yang.

If the eyes are completely closed you fall into a kind of reverie, you start dreaming; you become feminine energy, yin. To avoid both just look at the tip of the nose - a simple device, but the result is almost magical.

And this is not only so with the Taoists, Buddhists know it, Hindus know it. Down the ages all the meditators have somehow stumbled upon the fact that if your eyes are just half open, in a very miraculous way you escape two pitfalls. One is being distracted by the outside world, the other is being distracted by the inside dream world. You remain exactly on the boundary of the inner and the outer. And that's the point: to be on the boundary of the inner and the outer means you are neither male nor female in that moment. Your vision is free of duality; your vision has transcended the division in you. Only when you are beyond the division in you do you fall into the line of the magnetic field of the third eye.

That is very important to remember: you are not to pull the light in, you are not to force the light in. If the window is open, the light comes in of its own accord. If the door is open, the light floods in. You need not bring it in, you need not push it in, you need not drag it in. And how can you drag light in? How can you push light in? All that is needed is that you should be open and vulnerable to it.

And that's exactly what happens when you are looking at the tip of the nose. Just looking, without any concentration, just looking, without any heaviness in it, without any strain in it, suddenly the window of the third eye opens and the light starts streaming in. The light that has always been going out starts coming in too, and the circle is complete.

And this circle makes a seeker perfect. And this circle makes one utterly restful, relaxed. This circle makes an individual whole and holy. And no more divided.

Otherwise everybody is more or less schizophrenic. Only this one who has been able to create the circle of light - and the circulation of the light is beyond schizophrenia - is really healthy, is really non-neurotic. Otherwise the difference between people is not much. The neurotic and the so-called non-neurotic differ only in degree. In fact, the patient and the psychoanalyst are not different kinds of people, they are the same - one neurotic trying to help another neurotic. And sometimes it happens that the one who is helping may be more neurotic than the one he is trying to help.

More psychoanalysts go mad than any other profession in the world. More psychoanalysts commit suicide than any other profession in the world. Why? In a way it seems reasonable, logical.

Continuously dealing with neurosis, all kinds of madnesses - and they themselves are not whole - naturally, they are going to be affected. They are feeding themselves with these neuroses. When a psychoanalyst is listening to the patient and all his nonsense and rubbish, unconsciously he is collecting it in himself. The patient is dumping all his nonsense on the psychoanalyst. In fact, he pays for that. Slowly slowly the psychoanalyst has so much neurosis dumped in him that it is going to explode. It is natural.

If I were to decide about who should be the psychoanalyst then this process of making light circulate would be the basic requirement, the fundamental requirement for a psychoanalyst. Unless a person were capable of circulating his light he would not be allowed to treat anybody. And if a person is capable of circulating the light in himself he will never be affected by any kind of neurosis. He can listen, he can help - he will remain untouched. His circulation of light will keep him clean, purified.

He will be a holy person, whole, wholesome.

That is the difference between a guru and a psychoanalyst: only a guru can really be a psychoanalyst, only a guru can really be a therapist. Only a person who has come to his wholeness can be of real help to others who are on the way, struggling, stumbling in the dark. Otherwise the blind man is leading another blind man - both are going to fall in some well.

Richard Wilhelm

This book, THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, must become the most fundamental practice in the future for anybody who wants to become a psychotherapist. You will be surprised: the man, Wilhelm, who translated this book into a Western language for the first time, was himself a great psychologist; that's how he became interested in this book. But after he translated it he went mad, he became very disturbed. His whole psychoanalytic training and this book created such a contradiction in him, created such a riddle in him, that he became more divided. The translation of this book drowned him in a kind of madness. He became so disoriented because his whole training, his whole understanding, was disturbed.

Remember it, the secret is not very difficult. That is the difficulty of it - it is so simple that you only have to be on guard so that your mind does not make it difficult, does not give it twists and turns and contortions and distortions.

There is no need to bring the light in concentratedly; it comes of its own accord. And when it comes of its own accord it is beautiful. If you start trying to bring it in, you will be a failure, your effort is doomed to fail. And the more you fail the harder you will try, and the more you try the more your failure will be guaranteed.

Don't try to bring it in, just leave yourself in the right situation where it becomes available.

For example, if the moon is there in the night, just come to the window and stand at the window, and the moon starts showering its nectar on you. You need not do anything else, just be in a place where the moon is already streaming. Just make yourself available in the right field and things start happening - things which have immense value.

Remember, you have to look with both eyes at the tip of the nose so that at the tip of the nose your two eyes lose their duality. So, on the tip of the nose the light that is streaming out from your eyes becomes one; it falls on a single point. Where your two eyes meet, that is the place where the window opens. And then all is well. Then let it be, then simply enjoy, then simply celebrate, delight, rejoice. Then nothing has to be done.

It is helpful to sit upright. When your spine is straight, the energy from your sex centre also becomes available to the third eye. Just simple devices, nothing complex about them... it is just that when your two eyes meet at the tip of the nose, you are available to the third eye. Make your sex energy also available to the third eye. Then the effect will be double, the effect will be forceful, because your sex centre has all the energy that you have. When the spine is erect, straight, the sex centre is also available to the third eye. It is better to attack the third eye from both dimensions, to try to penetrate the third eye from both directions.

The Master is making things very clear. Upright, certainly, but don't make it uncomfortable; otherwise again you will be distracted by your discomfort. That is the meaning of a yoga posture. The Sanskrit word asana means a comfortable posture. Comfort is the basic quality of it. If it is not comfortable then your mind will be distracted by the discomfort. It has to be comfortable.

If you cannot sit on the floor like Eastern people can - because they have been sitting for centuries...

If a Western seeker cannot sit on the floor straight, comfortably, and he has to force himself, and it becomes uncomfortable and painful, then it is better to sit straight on a chair. But let the back of the chair be straight. You must have seen pictures and statues of ancient Egyptian kings and queens.

Their chairs have very straight backs. Then sit like that. That also is a yoga posture. Those ancient Egyptians knew the secrets.

Anyway, two things: your spine should be straight and your posture should be comfortable. If both are not possible... sometimes it is so, both are not possible. If you make your spine straight it becomes uncomfortable, if you become comfortable the spine is no longer straight - then choose comfort. It will not be as good but the next best thing is to choose comfort. Then forget about the spine and its straightness, because if the mind is distracted, nothing is going to happen. If it is possible to have both then it is very beautiful.

And don't escape from the world. Live in the world, in the conditions of it. The noise of the traffic is there, and the aeroplane passes by, and the trains are shuttling. All kinds of things are there, all these situations - the world. But sit silently IN the world, because escaping to a Himalayan cave is always dangerous - dangerous for the single reason that the silence of the Himalayas is contagious and you will feel that you have become silent. And the coolness of the air is contagious and you will think that you have cooled down. It will be borrowed, and whenever you come back to the market- place all will be gone. And then you will know that all those years in the Himalayas were a wastage, a sheer wastage; you were simply befooling yourself.

It is better to be in the world and attain to centring, because then it cannot be taken away from you. So wherever you are, you have to become centred in those conditions.

And by centring it is not meant that you have to be centred in the middle of the head.

And remember, not concentrating but just remaining alert, just a slight alertness. Look at the tip of the nose and remain slightly alert to the third eye. In fact, the moment you look at the tip of the nose you will become alert to the third eye, because that is the other pole of the nose. One pole, the outer pole, is the tip, the end; the other end of the nose is joined with the third eye. The moment you become aware of the tip you will suddenly become aware of the other end too. But just remain aware, effortlessly aware.

A tremendous statement: THEN ALL IS WELL. You have started arriving home. You are on the threshold of a revolution.

 

Tweet