Mind in a Hurry

 

It is a little complicated. First, there are many types. There is a sort of doziness which comes if you listen to me very attentively. Then it is not like a sleep, it is more like hypnosis. You are in such deep tune with me that your mind starts non-functioning. You simply listen to me, and just listening to me becomes like a lullaby. A certain doziness is there if this is the case, but this will come only when you listen to me very attentively. Then it is not a sleep. It is beautiful and you should not feel guilty about it. If it is created by listening to me then there is no problem. In fact, this should be the case, because then you are listening deeper and deeper. Then I am penetrating you very, very deep, and you are feeling like a doze because the mind is not functioning. You are relaxed. It is a state of let-go. You are allowing me to penetrate you deeper and deeper. This is good; nothing is wrong in it. You feel it like dozy because it is a passivity; you are not active, and there is no need.

While you are listening to me, there is no need to be active, because if you are active your mind will go on interpreting. This is beautiful and no need to feel guilty - allow it - and no need to make any effort to disturb it. I will be planted deep inside you. This is helpful.

In India we have a special term for it. Patanjali calls it "yoga tandra" - sleep that comes by yoga. In anything, if you do it very totally, you feel very relaxed, and that relaxation feels like sleep. It is not sleep; it is more akin to hypnosis. The word hypnosis also means sleep, but a different type of sleep in which two persons are in such a deep tune... If I hypnotize you, you will be able to listen to me, not to anything else. The hypnotized person listens to the hypnotizer only, nobody else. Exclusively he is focused. In this exclusive focusedness, the conscious drops and the unconscious functions. Your depth listens to my depth; it is a communication from depth to depth. The mind is not needed. But the point to remember is that you should be listening to me very attentively; then only will it happen.

Then there is a second type of sleep: you are not listening to me, and just by sitting here for so long you feel sleepy, not listening to me, or whatsoever I am saying is too much for you; you feel a little bored. Or whatsoever I am saying feels so monotonous - it is, because whatsoever I say is a single note. I am singing the single note in millions of ways: Patanjali, Buddha, Jesus are just excuses. I am singing a single note. It is monotonous. If you feel that it is monotonous and you feel a little bored or you cannot understand it, it is too much for you, or it goes above your head, then too you can feel sleepy, but that sleep is not good. Then there is no need to come to listen to me because in fact you are not listening, you are asleep. So why be physically here? - there is no need.

There is a third type also. The second type you must really feel guilty and make more effort to be aware and listening to me. Then it is possible the first type may happen. Then there is a third type that is not related either with-listening or your being in a state of monotony. It comes from your physiology. You may not be sleeping well in the night. Very few people are sleeping well, so when you have not slept well in the night you are a little tired. You are hungry for sleep, and sitting here in one posture with the same man again and again, listening to the same voice again and again, your body starts feeling sleepy. That comes from your body.

If that is the case, then do something with your sleep. It should be made deeper. Time is not much of a question - you can sleep for eight hours, and if it is not deep you will feel hungry for sleep, starved - depth is the question.

Every night before you go to sleep do a small technique, and that will help tremendously. Put the lights off, sit in your bed ready to sleep, but sit for fifteen minutes. Close your eyes and then start any monotonous nonsense sound, for example: "la, la, la" - and wait for the mind to supply new sounds. The only thing to be remembered is those sounds or words should not be of any language that you know.

If you know English, German, Italian, then they should not be of Italian, German, English. Any other language is allowed that you don't know - Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese. But if you know Japanese then it is not allowed, then Italian is wonderful. Speak any language that you don't know. You will be in a difficulty for few seconds only for the first day, because how do you speak a language you don't know? It can be spoken, and once it starts, any sounds, nonsense words, just to put the conscious off and allow the unconscious to speak...

When the unconscious speaks, the unconscious knows no language. It is a very, very old method. It comes from the Old Testament. It was called in those days glossolalia, and few churches in America still use it. They call it "talking in tongues". And it is a wonderful method, one of the most deep and penetrating into the unconscious.

You start by saying "la, la, la," and then anything that comes you go on. Just for the first day you will feel a little difficult. Once it comes, you know the knack of it. Then for fifteen minutes, use the language that is coming to you, and use it as a language; in fact you are talking in it. This will relax the conscious so deeply; fifteen minutes and you then just simply lie down and go to sleep. Your sleep will become deeper. Within weeks you will feel a depth in your sleep, and in the morning you will feel completely fresh. Then, even if I try, I cannot put you to sleep.

The first type is beautiful; the third type is a sort of physiological starvation - it is ill. The third type has to be treated; the first type has to be allowed. The second type you must feel guilty about it and make every effort to get out of it.

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The last question:

Yes, the modern man is in a hurry, and just the opposite will be helpful. If you are in a hurry, then Patanjali will be helpful because he is not in a hurry. He is the antidote. Your mind needs an antidote. Look at it this way: because the Western mind particularly - and now no other mind exists, only the Western mind less or more everywhere, even in the East - is in a hurry. That's why it has become interested in Zen, because Zen gives the promise of sudden enlightenment. Zen looks like instant coffee, and it has an appeal. But I know Zen won't help because the appeal is not because of Zen, the appeal is because of hurry. And then you don't understand Zen.

In the West, whatsoever is rumored about Zen is almost false; it fulfills a need of the mind who is in a hurry, but it is not true to Zen. If you go to Japan and ask Zen people, they wait for thirty years, forty years for the first satori to happen. Even for sudden enlightenment one has to work hard. The enlightenment is sudden, but the preparation is very long. It is just like you boil water: you heat the water; at a certain degree, hundred degrees, the water evaporates suddenly. Right. Evaporation is sudden, but in heating, you have to bring it up to hundred degrees. The heating will take time, and heating depends on your intensity.

And if you are in a hurry you don't have any heat, because in a hurry you would have to have Zen satori, or enlightenment, just by the way, if it can be attained, if it can be purchased. Running, you would like to snatch it from somebody's hands. It cannot be done that way. There are flowers, seasonal flowers: you sow the seeds and within three weeks the plants are getting ready, but within three months the plants have blossomed, gone, disappeared. If you are in a hurry, then it will be better to be interested in drugs rather than into meditation, yoga, Zen. Because drugs can give you dreams - instant dreams - sometimes of hell, sometimes of heaven. Then marijuana is better than meditation. If you are in a hurry, then nothing eternal can happen to you because the eternal needs eternal waiting. If you are asking for eternity to happen to you, you have to be ready for it. Being in a hurry won't help.

There is a Zen saying: If you are in a hurry, you will never reach. You can even reach just by sitting, but in a hurry you can never reach. The very impatience is a barrier.

If you are in a hurry then Patanjali is the antidote. If you are not in any hurry then Zen is also possible. This statement will look contradictory, but this is so. This is how reality is, contradictory. If you are in a hurry, then you will have to wait for many lives before the enlightenment happens to you. If you are not in a hurry, then right now it can happen.

I will tell you one story that I like very much. It is one of the old Indian stories.

Narada, a messenger between earth and heaven, a mythological figure, was going to heaven. He is just like a postman; he goes up and down continuously, bringing messages from above, bringing messages from down. He continues his work. He was going to heaven and just he passed one very, very old monk sitting under a tree with his mala, his beads, chanting the name of Rama. He looked at Narada and said, "Where are you going? Are you going to heaven? Then do me a favor. Ask God how much more I have to wait" - even in the very question, the impatience is there - "and remind him also," said the old monk, "that for three lives I have been doing meditation and austerities, and everything that can be done I have done, there is a limit to everything." A demand, expectation, impatience... Narada said, "I am going and I will ask."

And just by the side of the old monk, under another tree there is a young man dancing and singing the name of God. Just as a joke Narada asked the young man, "Would you also like that I should ask about you, how much time it will take?" But the young man was so much in his ecstasy that he didn't bother, he didn't answer.

Then after few days, Narada came back. He told the old man that "I asked God, and he laughed and he said, 'At least three lives more."" The old man threw his mala and said, "This is injustice! And whosoever says God is just is wrong!" He was very angry. Then Narada went to the young man who was still dancing and said, "Even if you have not asked, I asked, but I am afraid to tell you now, because that old man has got into such an anger he would have even hit me." But the young man was still dancing, not interested. Narada told him that "I asked him, and God said that tell that young man that he should count the leaves of the tree under which he is dancing; the same number he will have to be born again before he attains.'"

The young man listened, went into such ecstasy, laughed and jumped and celebrated. He said, "So soon? Because the earth is full of trees, millions and millions. And just these leaves, and the same number? So soon? God is infinite compassion, and I am not worthy of it! - and it is said immediately he attained. That very moment the body fell. That very moment he became enlightened.

If you are in a hurry, it will take time. If you are not in a hurry, it is possible right this moment.

Patanjali is the antidote for those who are in a hurry, and Zen is for those who are not in a hurry. And just the opposite happens: people who are in hurry, they become interested in Zen, and people who are not in any hurry, they become interested in Patanjali. This is wrong. If you are in a hurry, then Patanjali... because he will pull you down and bring you to your senses, and he will talk of a path so long he will be a shock to you. And if you allow him to enter you, your hurry will disappear.

That's why I am talking; I am talking on Patanjali because of you. You are in a hurry and I hope Patanjali will bring down your impatience; he will pull you down, back to the reality. He will bring you to your senses.