A Listening Heart__

The surtras:

Master Lu-tsu said:

These two mistakes have to be understood. One is the mistake of the feminine mind, the other is the mistake of the masculine mind.

The feminine mind can create indolence, laziness, because it is passive. And the masculine mind can create distraction because it is too active. It wants to do this and that - and that too. It wants to rush everywhere, in all directions. The feminine mind is passive; it wants to wait, to let things happen. But that too can be a danger if it becomes lethargy, if it becomes laziness, if it becomes a kind of death.

Remember, passivity can be either positive or negative, just as activity can be either positive or negative. The positive passivity means to be alert, awake, yet waiting. The negative passivity means to be asleep, snoring, and to call it 'waiting'.

Your lover is coming; any moment he will knock at the door. Now you can wait in two ways. The positive waiting will be that the door is open, your eyes are fixed on the gate, your ears are alert.

Any sound - the sound of footsteps, a knock on the door - even if a dead leaf flutters in the wind, and you will rush to the door. Somebody passes by on the road, and you rush to the door - maybe he has come. This is positive waiting. It is beautiful. But if you lock the door, and you put the light out and you say, 'When he comes and knocks, then I will see him,' and you start snoring, this is the negative kind of passivity, this is indolence. It is perfectly good to wait for God, but your passivity should be alive, vibrant.

And the second is distraction: that is the quality of the male mind. The male mind is continuously distracted.

That's why the feminine mind is monogamous and the masculine mind is polygamous, continuously distracted - any woman that passes by, and he becomes attracted. He forgets completely that he is already married. He forgets completely the woman to whom he has said, 'You are my life, and I will live only for you. You are my joy. My love is forever.' In a single moment he forgets all that nonsense. He is distracted very easily.

The male mind is too active. Activity is good if it is positive. Positive activity means concentrated activity, undistracted activity - digging a well on one spot continuously. Negative activity means digging a well here for a few moments, then in some other place, then in some other place - destroying the whole ground and not reaching the water source anywhere. That's what happens to the masculine mind: he loves this woman and that woman, and never reaches the reality of love.

It remains just a superficial phenomenon. It never becomes intimacy, it never takes depth. It never becomes a real involvement in each other's being - superficial contact, body-to-body at the most, sexual. It never reaches the heart, and, certainly, never the soul. Because to reach the heart, to reach the soul, time will be needed. One will have to wait and dig deep.

These are the two chief possible mistakes. Beware of them. Don't become too active, and don't become too lazy. Remain in the middle: inactively active, actively inactive. Remain in the middle. Your action should have the quality of waiting, and your waiting should have the quality of action.

And then success is absolutely certain; you need not think about it - it comes of its own accord. But these mistakes can be remedied.

Master Lu-tsu is giving you one of the most important secrets.

You should learn to breathe very silently, as if there were no hurry to breathe, as if you were indifferent to it, aloof, faraway distant. If you can be aloof, faraway and distant to your breathing, you will be able to attain to the middle. In that moment you will be neither masculine nor feminine.

You will be both and neither, you will be transcendental. And then both mistakes will disappear.

When you are distracted, watch: your breathing will be distracted too. When you are not distracted, when you are sitting silently with no distraction, your breathing will be cool, silent, rhythmic; it will have the quality of a subtle music. And that quality is the exact middle, because you are not doing anything, yet you are not fast asleep. You are neither active nor inactive you are balanced. And in that moment of balance you are closest to reality, to God, to heaven.

Remember, your each breath is not just a breath, it is a thought too, an emotion too, a fantasy too.

But this will be understood only if you watch your breathing for a few days. When you are making love, watch your breathing. You will be surprised: your breathing is chaotic; because sexual energy is very rough, raw energy. Sexual fantasies are rough and raw, animalistic. There is nothing special about sexuality - every animal has it. When you are sexually aroused, you are just behaving like any other animal in the world. And I am not saying that there is anything wrong in being an animal, all that I am saying is just a fact. I am stating a fact. So whenever you are in sexual love, watch your breath: it loses all balance.

Hence, in Tantra, love-making is allowed only when you have learnt how to make love and yet keep your breath cool, rhythmic. Then a totally different quality comes to your love-making: it becomes prayerful; then it is sacred. Now for the outsider there will be no difference because he will see you are making love to a woman or making love to a man, and it will be the same for the outsider. But for the insider, for those who know, there will be great difference. In the old Tantra schools where all those secrets were developed, experimented upon, observed, this was one of the central focuses of their experimentation: if a man can make love without his breath being at all affected by it, then it is no longer sex, then it is sacred. And then it will take you to great depths of your own being; it will open doors and mysteries of life.

Your breath is not just breath, because breath is your life; it contains all that life contains.

This is the Tantra approach and this is the approach of Tao, too:

And this is something special to Tao and Tantra. Yoga says: Avoid sex. Bypass it - it is dangerous. But Tao and Tantra both say: Don't avoid it. Transform its energy and then the illness itself can become the medicine.

And you can ask scientists; they are doing exactly that, particularly in allopathy. Injections are prepared out of the illness itself, to be injected, and they become medicinal. What allopathy has discovered recently is a very ancient discovery for Tantra and Tao.

Anything that is God-given must have some tremendous purpose behind it. Don't avoid it. Avoiding it, you will remain poor. Don't escape from it, because then something will remain unlived in you.

That's why the so-called yogi is continuously tortured by sexual fantasies. He cannot sleep well - it is impossible - because whatsoever he has been denying in the day comes with a vengeance in the night. Whatsoever he has repressed in the unconscious, when he goes to sleep and the controls are withdrawn, surfaces again; it becomes dream. The yogi, the so-called yogi, is continuously afraid.

He is afraid of seeing a woman, he is afraid of touching a woman. He is AFRAID. And what kind of freedom is this? This fear can't bring freedom.

Tao and Tantra have a totally different approach. They say: Whatsoever is God-given, transform it. It is raw material. Something of a great treasure must be hidden in it.

Sexual energy can be transformed if you can change your breathing system. Anger can be transformed if you can change your breathing system. Just watch how you breathe when you are angry. And the next time you feel angry, don't breathe the way that you have always breathed whenever you were angry, and you will be surprised: you cannot be angry either. If you don't breathe in a certain way, anger is not supported, anger disappears. Instead of anger, compassion arises. And so disappears sex, and instead of sex, love arises. Love is absolutely human. Sex is not just human, it is animal, too, but no animal knows about love.

Sex is animal, love is human, prayer is divine. Sex has to be transformed into love, and love has to be transformed into prayer.

In sex, the breathing goes chaotic. That's why I have chosen chaotic meditation for certain purposes - it is cathartic. Chaotic meditation, chaotic breathing hits all your repressed anger, sex, greed, jealousies, hatred, and brings them out on the surface. It is a great cleansing process.

In sex, the breathing is chaotic. In love, the breathing is musical. In prayer, it almost stops.

When you breathe out, let the light go out of your eyes When you breathe in, let the light go back inside. Make a connection between your breathing and your light circulation. This way you will give some work to your breathing so it need not have any other imagination. This is an imagination - you have given something. That's why Lu-tsu says: MAN CANNOT BE WITHOUT IMAGININGS - not in the beginning at least. It is only at the highest peak that imagination can be dropped. But we can use it, we can make a stepping-stone of it.

Imagine that when your breath is going out, your light is going out. When you breathe in, your light goes in. Try it in a simple way: when you breathe out, just feel all the light that was in being thrown out. And when you breathe in, feel all the light of the existence entering you. And soon the imagination will become joined together with your breathing, will be welded with breathing. So you have used imagination. And then slowly slowly, let your breathing become calmer and quieter.

There is no need to practise any particular rhythm as they do in yoga, pranayama, because each person has to find his own way. The body is different, the mind is different - your breathing cannot be alike; you will have to find your own way slowly slowly. One thing has to be kept in mind: that it has to be made calm and quiet and musical.

And then Lu-tsu introduces another thing. He says: Just as light enters from the eyes - comes in, goes out - it also enters from the ear - comes in and goes out. You will be surprised, because we don't see any light coming in and going out from the ear. But then ask modern physics. They say that sound is nothing but electricity, a function of electricity. Sound is electricity. That's what in the ancient language Lu-tsu is calling light. Sound goes in and comes out from the ear.

The ear is the feminine part of your body just as the eye is the masculine part of your body. Just as the eye is extrovert, the ear is introvert. Hence, there are two kinds of meditations in the world: either meditations concerned with eye-energy or meditations concerned with ear-energy.

The meditations concerned with ear-energy are feminine meditations, passive - you have just to listen, not do anything. Listening to the birds, the wind passing through the pine trees, or to some music, or to the noise of the traffic - just listening, doing nothing - and great silence comes in, and great peace starts falling and showering on you It is easier through the ear than through the eye.

It is easier through the ear because the ear is passive, non-aggressive. It cannot do anything to existence, it can only let it happen. The ear is a door: it allows.

Light and sound are only different in name.

There are stories in India - and possibly true stories; sooner or later science is going to prove them right. There are stories in India that there is a certain kind of melody that can create fire. You can put an unlit candle before the musician, and if he plays a certain melody, a certain raga, suddenly the candle becomes lit. Now it looks impossible, it looks just like a story - maybe a myth, or maybe a metaphor - but if sound is electricity, then vibrations falling into a certain pattern can create it.

Now experiments are on the way. And my feeling is, sooner or later, it will be possible to do it again scientifically.

It is a well-known fact that whenever an army passes over a bridge they are told to break their rhythm. Ordinarily they walk in a certain rhythm: left, right, left, right, left, right. Many times it has been observed that when the army is passing in a certain rhythm, the bridge collapses. So now it is a well-known fact that passing over a bridge the army has to drop its right-left, right-left rhythm. That certain vibe is dangerous to the bridge.

In Canada they were experimenting with plants and their relationship with music. A small experiment, but immensely significant. They planted the same seasonal flowers in two places, at the same time, with same manure, the same gardener looking after them - everything exactly the same for both plots. But to one plot a recording of Ravi Shankar's sitar was made available - continuously played. And to the other plot, pop music. And it was a very revealing phenomenon. In the plot where pop music was fed, all the plants started moving away from the mechanism. They started leaning away from the mechanism, as if wanting to escape, not wanting to hear it - tired of it. And their flowers were smaller, and they took a longer time to grow - almost double the time of the other plot. In the other plot where Ravi Shankar's sitar was played, the plants started leaning towards the mechanism; they all covered the mechanism, embracing it, hugging it. And the growth was double, the flowers were bigger, and they came sooner than expected. Even plants feel the difference of sound waves.

These airplanes passing by are driving humanity crazy. And the noise is growing so much every day that if man can survive it, it will be a miracle.

In fact, everything is the same. It is ALL made of the stuff called light, fire, electricity - whatsoever name you choose. Only the forms are different.

Understanding comes through the ear, and clarity comes through the eye. Clarity is masculine, understanding is feminine. Hence, I always say that a woman finds it easier to become a disciple.

A woman finds it easier to surrender, finds it easier to understand than a man. The man asks for logical clarity, logical conviction. The woman asks for something else: the rhythmic conviction. The woman listens intuitively. She feels the vibe of the person who is saying it. She does not seem very concerned about what is being said but who is saying it, how it is being said, from where it is arising.

She goes deeper; she catches hold of the very spirit. Man remains concerned with the letter. And because of the printing presses and the scriptures becoming available to everybody in the form of books, a great change has happened.

Originally, all the teachings were available only from the mouth of the Master. They were transmitted orally, so the receiving centre was the ear. Now books are available. When Krishna talked to Arjuna, Arjuna listened to it, he functioned from the ear. Great understanding happened; he was transformed. But Arjuna functioned as the feminine.

Now you read the Gita. Reading means that it is through the eye, and the eye is not bothered about understanding, the eye wants logical clarity. It is a totally different approach. For centuries, all the religions of the world insisted that their scriptures should not be written. And there was a reason for it: because once they are written, their whole quality changes. Once they are written, the eye becomes important, and the ear is no more important.

Listening to me is one thing, reading is totally another. When you read, you function as male mind. When you listen, you function as female mind.

So listen to your breathing. If you can listen to it, that means it is rough. If it has no tone, that means it is rough. When you can only feel it and you cannot hear it, then it is still and quiet. And that is the right way to be in tune with existence, to be in tune with yourself, to be in tune with reality. And the quieter it is, the deeper you are. When it stops sometimes... It does stop! It is happening to many sannyasins here. They come and report to me, because they become very frightened: when the breathing stops they think they are going to die.

Just the other day there was Saguna's question, that he started feeling as if he were going to die. He became frightened. Do not become frightened. If breathing stops, allow it, enjoy it. You are not going to die. In that very stopping of the breath you will know the true form of reality, you will know life eternal, you will know something that knows no death.

If you can allow... That's why I told Saguna, 'Saguna, you fool, you missed! Don't miss it again when it happens.'

If the breathing stops,

True life is manifested - life that does not depend on breathing, life that is eternal, life that is not part of the body, life that will be there even after the body has fallen into dust and disappeared. And in that moment consciousness is attained. One becomes a Buddha. BUDDHA means utterly conscious, awakened.

You know it. If you run, the breath becomes very chaotic, it starts moving faster and faster. Hence, the yoga postures: the full lotus posture - sitting erect, utterly silent, as if you have become a marble statue, with no movement - is just the opposite of running. It is just an outside device to help yom breathing become quiet. If your breathing can become fast by running, it certainly will become quiet by sitting utterly like a Buddha statue. Sitting like a statue, with no movement in the body, certainly, breathing becomes slower and slower and slower... and stops. In the beginning it is only for a few moments. Don't be afraid that you are having any heart-attack or anything. It is not a heart-attack, it is a God-attack.

This is not only so with a hen, this is so with every woman, every mother, even the human mother. There may be a thunderstorm and she will not hear it and she will not be awakened from her sleep. But let her child just start crying, or just start moving, and she will be awakened immediately as if her ears were continuously focused on the child. The train will pass by and she will not be awakened.

The aeroplane will pass and she will not be awakened. But let the child show a slight restlessness and she is immediately alert. Her whole ears are listening to the child. She is connected heart-to-heart with the child from the ear. She is constantly listening as if she could hear the very heartbeat of the child.

And this is the way for all meditators to be connected with the ear - so deeply that you can hear your breathing, your heartbeat. In the beginning you will be able to hear it because it is chaotic. But if you go on listening, listening, listening, just the very effort to listen makes it quieter. And when your listening is profound, you have - become skillful, and you know how to be aware, all tone, all sound disappears, and there are moments when breathing stops. And those are the great moments of ecstasy, insight, satori, samadhi.

That's why I said that if in meditation you suddenly feel your heart is dying, don't think it is a heart-attack. When the breathing stops, you will feel as if the heart is dying. It is not dying, it is giving birth to your real heart.

This is The Secret of the Golden Flower: if the heart can die, the flower will bloom. Die as you are, so you can be reborn. Jesus says, 'Unless a man is born again, he will not enter into my kingdom of God.'

 

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