Date:   10/18/2023 12:08:48 AM ( 13 m ago)
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Question 4:

It is a difficult question - difficult because the happening is always inside, in a way private. And you cannot know of it or about it from the outside. You can never decide from the outside whether someone has achieved the cosmic sound AUM. The deeper you go, the more private is the happening. The public world from where you can decide is just outside. So how to decide whether one has achieved the cosmic sound, whether one has gone to the deepest ground, has known?

You cannot decide it from the outside; that is one thing. Of course, many things which can be known from the outside will begin to happen through the person who has reached. But still, the feeling that he has reached the cosmic ground will just be an inference - an inference from his behaviour. And behaviour can be false; behaviour can be imitated. Buddha walks a certain way; Buddha sleeps a certain way; Buddha talks a certain way. You can imitate it without being a Buddha. And sometimes it happens that you can imitate better than Buddha - mmm? - because Buddha is just unaware.

Whatsoever is happening is just happening. So you can imitate it in a better way; you can practise it; you can become an expert. And Buddha may not even be able to compete with you because he may not ever have repeated anything.

So from outside, imitation is possible - very easily possible. To achieve the authentic is arduous; to imitate is easy - very easy, because inside you remain the same; just outside you can create. So it is difficult. It is difficult to say from outside what has happened inside. One thing: you cannot decide from outside. But from inside if you ask, "How can I know whether I have achieved the cosmic sound AUM or not?" - if you ask this, then I will say that when you achieve it you know it. If someone asks, "How can I know whether I am alive or dead? How can I know?" what will we say to him? We will say that even if you can think this much - whether you are alive or dead - you are alive.

When you come to the cosmic sound, to the very ground of being; when you hear the AUM - not uttered by you, not uttered by anyone, but just as a cosmic sound all around - you know. The phenomenon is so real that, really, the question never arises whether this AUM, this sound, is real.

The question arises whether I am real now or not. You fade, you become just unreal. You become just a phantom, a ghost. Now your reality is not like it has ever been. All around, the real is.

But it may even be a dream. You also feel in a dream that everything is real, so how to decide whether this sound that you are hearing is a dream or a reality? The decision comes from a certain source. You will never be the same again - the before and after. This hearing of the sound will be a discontinuity in your existence. You will never be the same again. You will not even be able to connect yourself with your past; it will just drop. You will only remember it as if it belonged to someone else. Your memory will not be yours now. After this experience you will be reborn, and your rebirth will be the evidence. You will never be the same again. The old has dropped; you cannot find the old man again. It is nowhere now. It was there. it is now not there. For you this will be the evidence that you have heard.

But I think there is a third implication also. One can go on repeating AUM, so how will one find out whether the AUM one is repeating and the AUM one has come upon are different or just the same?

You will feel it, because you are the center of the AUM that you utter, and then it vibrates outside.

Mmm? - this is the dimension. You create it just as you throw a stone into a silent lake. The stone becomes the center, and then there are waves which go outward towards the banks. When you say AUM, you create a center in yourself: you drop a stone, and then the sound goes out and out and out, far off from you. This is the dimension, the direction.

When you hear the sound AUM, the cosmic sound, it is different. It comes; it never goes. It is not a going away from you: it is a coming to you. And the center is nowhere to be found. It just goes on coming and coming and coming and coming. You are overflowed with it. You see the difference?

You are not the center. Rather, you are the bank, and from some unknown center the sound waves come to you. They go on coming, they never stop. So this direction - the sound center you, and the waves going outward - is AUM uttered by you. You not as the center, and sound waves coming and coming and coming from somewhere - the center is never known and will never be known....

Someone asked Jacob Boehme, "Where is the center of God? Where is the center of the universe?" He said, "Either everywhere or nowhere." Both mean the same.

So when you begin to feel that the AUM is coming to you... let me say it in a different way. Ordinarily, seekers go towards the Divine, but until the Divine comes to you, remember, you may just be in a fantasy, just in a dream. If you go to the Divine, to God, to find the center, you will go on searching, but you will never find it.

How can you find the center? The center can only come to you. So it is always a false relationship - the seeker going towards God. The real relationship is completely different - God coming to the seeker. When you are ready, He comes. When you are open, He becomes the guest. When your invitation is valid, total, He is there. It is always a coming, never a going. So, really, there is not a phenomenon of man in search of God, but, rather, it is God in search of man.

But you are hiding, escaping, so He cannot find you. Wherever He comes, you escape. You are a closing, never an opening. He goes on knocking, and your doors are shut. So when this AUM begins to come, when it is a coming to you, you are just filled, you are just bathed in it - and the source is not found. If you can find the source, again it may be that someone is creating the sound from outside - and it is coming! Someone may be playing AUM on some instrument, and it is coming.

There is no source of it. That's why mystics have always said that God is the sourceless One. There is no source. It comes as if from nowhere - just out of the blue - and it is here. When you feel this, then you know that the AUM is now cosmic. It doesn't belong to you.

In Zen they use koans - puzzles, absurd puzzles - as meditation objects. Rinzai always gave to his disciples the koan of hearing the sound of one hand clapping. It is impossible! How can you hear the sound of one hand? So whenever seekers would be there he would say, "First go and find out what is the sound of one hand clapping. Hear it! and then come to me and tell me." It looks absurd, but when a man like Rinzai would say this to someone, the person would go, close the door, sit down in meditation, and he would think. Then he would come within hours and say, "What nonsense you have asked! How can it be?" Rinzai would say, "I have heard it, so you go and again try. I also said to my Teacher, 'How is this possible?' but he said, 'I have heard, so you try.' And I tried, and now I have heard. So you try - and it will come." The person would go on coming. Every morning he would have a DARSHAN - go to see his Teacher - and then the Teacher would ask, "Have you heard?" He would say, "No, I have not heard yet." The Teacher would tell him to try harder. So he would begin to imagine the sound. because it is very frustrating to go every day with nothing to show to the Teacher. So he would say, "Oh yes, I have heard it. It is just like wind passing through leaves." But the Teacher would say, "No, it is not, because wind and leaves are two things. It must be of one. Wind passing through leaves is just an ordinary sound. Two things can create friction, so it is still of two hands. You cannot befool me! Wind passing through the trees - it is of two hands. Never come again unless you hear the sound of one hand!" And he would come, and again and again he would say, "I have heard this and that, or I have heard the sound of the water-drops falling on the roof." With so many things he would come, and he would be denied. And this would go on for months.

Then suddenly one day Rinzai asked, "Where is that man? He has not come and it has been so long. Go and find out what he is doing." He was found in his cell or under some tree just lost, and he was brought to the Teacher. And the Teacher said, "Now you have heard. Haven't you heard?" And he said, "I have heard! I have heard!" What sound has he heard? There is only one sound: that is the sound of the cosmic AUM which is without friction - not two things, but simply the sound. It is not created by any clapping.

The moment someone says, "I have heard," he will be a different person. You cannot be the same again. Mm? And the difference will always be: sound coming to you from nowhere - sourceless sound, uncreated. Then it is the cosmic AUM.

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