Kaivalya is the ultimate health, wholeness, all wounds healed. When all wounds heal, how can you exist? The self [ego] is nothing but accumulated tensions. The self is nothing but all sorts of diseases, illnesses. The self is nothing but desires unfulfilled, hopes frustrated, expectations, dreams - all broken, fractured. It is nothing but accumulated disease, that you call 'self'. Or take it from another side: in moments of harmony you forget that you are. Later on, you may remember how beautiful it was, how fantastic it was, how far-out. But in moments of real far-outness, you are not actually there.

Something bigger than you has overpowered you; something higher than you has possessed you; something deeper than you has bubbled up. You have disappeared. In deep moments of love, lovers disappear. In deep moments of silence, meditators disappear. In deep moments of singing, dancing, celebration, celebrators disappear. And this is going to be the last celebration, the ultimate, the highest peak -> kaivalya.

Patanjali says, "Even the desire to be disappears. Even the desire to remain disappears." One is so fulfilled, so tremendously fulfilled that one never thinks in terms of being.

For what? - you want to be there tomorrow, also, it is because today is unfulfilled. The tomorrow is needed; otherwise you will die unfulfilled. The yesterday was a deep frustration; today is again a frustration; the tomorrow is needed.

A frustrated mind creates future. A frustrated mind clings with the future. A frustrated mind wants to be because now, if death comes, no flower has yet flowered. Nothing has yet happened; there has only been a fruitless waiting: "Now, how can I die? I have not even lived yet." That unlived life creates a desire to be.

People are so much afraid of death: these are the people who have not lived. These are the people who are, in a certain sense, already dead. A person who has lived and lived totally does not think about death. If it comes, good; he will welcome. He will live that too, he will celebrate that too.

Life has been such a blessing, a benediction; one is even ready to accept death. Life has been such a tremendous experience; one is ready to experience death also. One is not afraid because the tomorrow is not needed; the today has been so fulfilling. One has come to fruition, flowered, bloomed. Now the desire for tomorrow disappears. The desire for tomorrow is always out of fear, and fear is there because love has not happened. The desire to always remain simply shows that deep down you are feeling yourself completely meaningless. You are waiting for some meaning.

Once the meaning has happened, you are ready to die - silently, beautifully, gracefully.

"Kaivalya," Patanjali says, "happens only when the last desire to be has disappeared." The whole problem is to be or not to be. The whole life we try to be this and that, and the ultimate can happen only when you are not.

The self is nothing but the most purified form of the ego. It is the last remnant of strain, stress, tension. You are still not perfectly open; something is still closed. When you are completely open, just a watcher on the hill, a witness, even the death desire disappears. With the disappearance of this desire, something absolutely new happens in life. A new law starts functioning.

You have heard about the law of gravitation; you have not heard about the law of grace. The law of gravitation is that everything falls downwards. The law of grace is that things start falling upwards.

And that law has to be there because in life everything is balanced by the opposite. Science has come to discover the law of gravitation: Newton sitting on a bench in a garden saw one apple falling - it happened or not; that is not the point - but seeing that the apple was falling down, a thought arose in him: "Why do things always fall downwards? Why not otherwise? Why doesn't a ripe fruit fall upwards and disappear into the sky? Why not sideways? Why always downwards?"

He started brooding and meditating, and then he discovered a law. He came upon, stumbled upon a very fundamental law: that the earth is gravitating things towards itself. It has a gravitation field. Like a magnet, it pulls everything downwards.

Patanjali, Buddha, Krishna, Christ - they also became aware of a different fundamental law, higher than gravitation. They became aware that there comes a moment in the inner life of consciousness when consciousness starts rising upwards - exactly like gravitation. If the apple is hanging on the tree, it does not fall. The tree helps it not to fall downwards. When the fruit leaves the tree, then it falls downwards.

Exactly the same: if you are clinging to your body you will not fall upwards; if you are clinging to your mind you will not fall upwards. If you are clinging to the idea of self, you will remain under the impact of gravitation - because body is under the impact of gravitation, and mind also. Mind is subtle body; body is gross mind. They are both under the impact of gravitation.

Your true nature - the witnessing conscious - is not under the impact of gravitation, but because you are clinging to something that is under the impact of gravitation - body & mind - it has greater influence.  It is as if you are carrying a big rock and trying to swim in a river; the rock will pull you down. It won't allow you to swim. If you leave the rock, you will be able to swim easily.

We are clinging to something which is functioning under the law of gravitation -> body, mind. Hence, the reason why humanity has so easily fallen.

Patanjali says, "Once you have become aware that you are neither the body nor the mind, suddenly you start rising upwards." Some center somewhere high in the sky pulls you up. That law is called 'grace'.

Then God pulls you upwards. And that type of law has to be there, otherwise gravitation could not exist. In nature, if positive electricity exists, then negative electricity has to exist. Man exists, then the woman has to exist. Reason exists, then intuition has to exist. Night exists, then the day has to exist. Life exists, then death has to exist. Everything needs the opposite to balance it. Now science has become aware of one law: gravitation. Science still needs a Patanjali to give it another dimension, the dimension of falling upwards. Then life becomes complete.

You are a meeting place of gravitation and grace. Within you, grace and gravitation are criss-crossing. You have something of the earth and something of the sky within you. You are the horizon where earth and sky are meeting. If you hold too much to the earth, then you will forget completely that you belong to the sky, to the infinite space, the beyond. Once you are no more attached with the earth part of you, suddenly you start rising high.

A new gravitation starts functioning. Liberation is nothing but entering the stream of grace. You cannot liberate yourself, you can only drop the barriers; liberation happens to you.

Have you seen a magnet? - small iron pieces are pulled towards it. You can see those small iron pieces rushing towards the magnet, but don't be deceived by your eyes. In fact, they are not rushing, the magnet is pulling them. On the surface it appears that those iron filings are going, moving towards the magnet.

That is just on the surface. Deep down, something just opposite is happening: they are not moving towards the magnet, the magnet is pulling them towards itself. In fact, it is the magnet which has reached them. With the magnetic field it has approached them, touched them, pulled them. If those iron filings are free, not attached to something - not attached to a rock - then the magnet can pull them. If they are attached to a rock, the magnet will go on pulling but they will not be pulled because they are attached.

Exactly the same happens: once you discriminate that you are not the body, you are no more bound to any rock, you are no more in bondage with earth. Immediately, God's magnet starts functioning.

It is not that you reach to God. In fact, God has already reached you. You are under His magnetic field, but clinging to something. Drop that clinging and you are in the stream. Buddha used to use a word srotaapanna -> falling into the stream. He used to say, "Once you fall into the stream, then the stream takes you to the ocean. Then you need not do anything." The only thing is to jump into the stream. You are sitting on the bank. Enter the stream and then the stream will do the remaining work.

It is as if you are standing on a high building, on the roof of a high building, three hundred feet or five hundred feet above the earth. You go on standing, the gravitation has reached you, but it will not work unless you jump. Once you jump, then you need not do anything. Just a step off the roof... enough; your work is finished. Now the gravitation will do all the work. You need not ask, "Now what am I supposed to do?" You have taken the first step. The first is the last step. Krishnamurti has written a book, THE FIRST AND THE LAST FREEDOM. The meaning is: the first step is the last step because once you are in the stream, everything else is to be done by the stream. You are not needed. Only for the first step is your courage needed.

You start moving slowly upwards. Your life energy starts rising high - an upsurge. And it is unbelievable when it happens because it is against all the laws that you have known up to now.

It is levitation, not gravitation. Something in you simply starts moving upwards, and there is no barrier to it. Nothing bars its path. Just a little relaxation, a little unclinging - the first step - and then automatically, spontaneously, your consciousness becomes more and more discriminative, more and more aware.