Let It Be So_ at The Turiya Files

No, I will not say anything about those techniques - because Hasidism is absolutely non-technical. The whole approach is non-technical. Hasidism has no technique - just a sheer joy in life.

Hasidism is not a path of meditation, it is a path of prayer. Prayer has no technique. Meditation can have millions of techniques because meditation is a scientific approach to inner reality. Hasidism is not a science, it is an art. Hasidism does not believe in techniques but in love.

Remember well, the technological mind is a mathematical mind. The mind of the lover is non-mathematical; the mind of the lover is the mind of the poet. Love is a romance, not a technique. Love is a dream, not a technique. Love has a totally different approach to life.

Hasidism has no techniques; it has no yoga, no Tantra in it. It simply says: trust life, trust God, and whatsoever has been given to you, enjoy it. Enjoy it so deeply and with such gratitude that every ordinary thing becomes hallowed, becomes holy, each small thing in life becomes sacred. Transform everything into a sacred thing - the profane disappears when you bring your energy of love, grace, gratitude.

Love is not a technique, so nobody can teach you how to love. And if you come across books which say that they can teach you how to love, beware of those books. If you once learn the techniques of love you will never be able to love again. Those techniques will become a barrier. Love is a natural spontaneous phenomenon. Even animals are loving - they don't have Kinseys and Masters and Johnsons and they are achieving 0rgasm perfectly, without any scientific help. They don't have any sex therapists and they don't go to any guru to be taught how to love. It is an inborn quality. Each being born brings it with himself.

There are a few things which you bring with your birth. A child is born...nobody can teach the child how to breathe. If it depended on teaching, then nobody would be able to be alive, because time would be needed to teach the child. He would first have to be sent to school, taught language, disciplined, and then finally, after at least seven, eight or ten years, we would be able to teach him how to breathe - he doesn't understand even the word 'breathe'. No, it doesn't depend on any teaching. The child is born with the capacity to breathe; it is inborn. It is as inborn as a flower on a bush. It is as inborn as water rushing towards the ocean - naturally.

The moment a child is born the whole being of the child hankers, becomes hungry for breath - not knowing what is happening because he has never breathed before. Nobody has ever taught him, he has never done it, he has no experience about it - it simply happens.

In exactly the same way, one day, at the age of fourteen, the child starts feeling a tremendous attraction towards the other sex. Nobody has taught it; in fact, teachers have been teaching against it. The whole human history seems to be a teaching against sexuality. against sex energy. Religions, cultures, civilisations, priests and politicians - they have all been teaching how to suppress sex. But still it cannot be suppressed. It seems it is impossible to suppress it.

It is a natural phenomenon. It arises. It arises even when you are against it - see the truth of it. Even when you are against it, it arises in spite of you. It is bigger than you. You cannot control it. It is natural.

Hasidism says that if a man starts living a natural life, one day, suddenly, love of God arises as naturally as love for the woman or love for the man arises; as naturally as breathing arises after birth. That precious moment cannot be managed; you cannot plan for it, you cannot prepare for it, there is no need. You simply live a natural life. Don't fight with nature, float with it, and one day suddenly you will see that grace has descended on you. A tremendous urge has arisen in your being, a new Love towards existence - call it God. Because when love arises, existence becomes personal. Then it is no more 'it'; it becomes 'thou'. Then it is a relationship between 'I' and 'thou'.

Hasidism simply says don't be unnatural and prayer will be born on its own accord. It has no techniques. And that's the beauty of it.

If you have missed the natural flowering of prayer - then techniques are needed. Meditation is a substitute for prayer; it is second to prayer. If you have missed prayer then meditation is needed but if prayer has arisen in you then there is no need for any meditation. Prayer is spontaneous meditation; meditation is prayer with effort. Prayer with technique is meditation; meditation without technique is prayer.

Hasidism is the religion of prayer, that's why in Hasidism there is no renunciation. A Hasid lives the natural life that God has conferred on him. Wherever God has placed him, he lives, he loves; he enjoys the small pleasures of life. And once you start enjoying the small pleasures, the total cumulative effect is a great bliss in your being.

This has to be understood. Don't wait for some great bliss to descend on you. It never happens. Great bliss is nothing but small pleasures accumulating in your being. The total of all the small pleasures is the great bliss. Eating, enjoy it. Drinking, enjoy it. Taking a bath, enjoy it. Walking, enjoy it. Such a beautiful world, such a beautiful morning, such beautiful clouds...what else do you need to celebrate? The sky full of stars...what more do you need to be prayerful? The sun rising from the east...what more do you need to bow down? And amidst a thousand and one thorns a small roseflower arises, opening its buds, so fragile, so vulnerable, yet so strong, so ready to fight with the wind, with the lightning, with the thunderings. Look at the courage...what more do you need to understand trust?

Techniques are needed when you have missed these small openings towards God. If you go on looking in the small openings, the total effect is a great-door. And suddenly you start seeing what prayer is. Not only seeing, you start living it.

Hasidism is a totally different approach to Tantra. And Hasidism is far superior to any Tantra, because it is the natural Tantra, it is the natural way. It is the way of Tao.

But the mind is very cunning. The mind wants to manipulate. The mind wants to manipulate even the relationship of love; the mind wants to manipulate even the mysterious phenomenon of prayer. The mind is a great controller. The obsession of the mind is to control everything, not to allow anything beyond control - hence technique. The mind is always asking for techniques and the mind goes on planning for every possibility.

If you plan for every possibility, if you manage for everything on your own, you never give a chance for God to penetrate you, to take control onto his shoulders. You never allow God to help you. You think you have to be independent; you think there is no other way than self-help. You remain unnecessarily poor.

A small child was playing around his father who was sitting in the garden. And the small child was trying to pull up a big rock. It was too big and he could not do it. He tried hard. He was perspiring.

The child said, 'Wrong. I am using all my energy. And I don't see what more I can do?'

The father said, 'You have not asked me to help. That too is your energy. I am sitting here and you have not asked me to help. You are not using all your energy.'

A man who lives through techniques may think he is using all his energies but he has not asked for God's help. A man who is simply meditating with techniques is a poor man. An Hasid is tremendously rich because he is really using all his energy. An Hasid is open; a technique-oriented mind is a closed mind. It goes on planning everything. Even if your plans are fulfilled you will not be happy, because they are your plans. They are as small as you are. Even if you succeed you will be a failure; even in your success you will have the taste of frustration. Because what will you get? Or, if you fail, you will of course be frustrated. When you fail you are frustrated, but when you succeed then you are frustrated too.

Open yourself to the divine. You live naturally; not trying to improve, not living through ideas, not living through moral disciplines - just living a natural life. Nature should be your only discipline, and whatsoever is natural is good because that's how God wills it to be, wants it to be. If you can accept your life with such gratefulness, that this is how God wants it to be.... If he has given sex to you, he has given sex to you - he knows better.

You need not try to enforce any celibacy on yourself. An enforced celibacy is ugly, more ugly than a natural sex. And if you accept natural sex you will find that beyond a certain point natural sex becomes natural celibacy. Then BRAHMACHARYA arises. Then you start living in a totally different way, it comes floating with the river of life.

Do you see? A river descends from the mountains, moves thousands of miles, then one day disappears into the ocean. If the river were a great thinker, and it started thinking, 'This is going downwards. I should not do that. My abode is on the mountains. A river is first just snow peaks of the Himalayas - there is my abode. And I am falling. This is sin. Falling down in a glacier, moving towards the earth, from the height of the heaven....' If rivers were thinkers they would go crazy, because this is going down, descending into hell. But rivers are not thinkers, they are very fortunate. They accept it. It was God's will to be on the hilltop, it is his will now to explore the depths.

And a person who really wants to know the height has also to know the depth, otherwise he will not be able to know. Depth is the other part of the height. The higher the peak of the mountain, the deeper the valley. If you want to know the tree, you have to know the roots also. The tree goes upwards and roots go downwards. And the tree exists between this: the upward movement and the downward movement. This is the tension that gives life to the tree.

The river moves, trusting, not knowing where she is going - she has never gone before and she has no road map available, no guide to guide. But she goes trusting: if this is how it is happening it must be good. She goes singing and dancing. And then one day every river - whether it runs towards the East or whether it runs towards the West or the South or the North, it makes no difference - every river finally, eventually, reaches the ultimate, disappears into the ocean. In the ocean she has attained the final depth.

Now the journey is complete. She has known the peaks of the Himalayas, now she has known the depth of the ocean. Now the experience is total; now the circle is complete. Now the river can disappear into nirvana; now the river can disappear into moksha. This is what liberation is.

An Hasid lives like a river. He trusts. A man who is too obsessed with technique is a non-trusting man, a doubting man. He cannot trust in life, he trusts in his own techniques.

A gorilla collector was anxious to collect some more gorillas, so he went to Africa. Soon he found himself in the hut of a Great White Hunter. 'And how much do you charge for each catch?' asked the collector. 'Well,' said the Hunter, 'I get five hundred dollars tor myself, five hundred dollars for that little pygmy over there with the rifle, and five hundred dollars for my dog.'

The collector couldn't figure out why the dog should get five hundred dollars, but being a practical man he reasoned that fifteen hundred dollars was reasonable and he didn't care how it got divided up.

On safari the Great White Hunter spied a gorilla up a tree whereupon he climbed up the tree and hit the gorilla over the head. As the gorilla fell to the ground, the dog ran over and grabbed it by the testicles with his teeth, rendering it motionless. Meanwhile the Hunter climbed down the tree, brought a cage over, and pushed the gorilla in it.

The collector was flabbergasted. He said to the Hunter, 'This is simply fantastic! I have never seen anything like it in my life! You are certainly earning your five hundred dollars, and that dog - well, what can I say? - he's simply terrific. But that pygmy with the rifle - he doesn't seem to be doing a thing.'

The Hunter said, 'Don't you worry about the pygmy. He earns his money.'

So on and so forth it went, catching gorilla after gorilla, until finally he came across a gorilla who had been watching the whole proceedings. The Hunter climbed up the tree, and just as he was about to bash the gorilla over the head, the gorilla turned and bashed him first.

As the Hunter was falling from the tree, he yelled to the pygmy, 'Shoot the dog! Shoot the dog!'

Now this is the technique-oriented mind. It arranges for everything, for every possibility. It does not leave a loophole in the system.

A religious man cannot live in such a planned way, it is not possible. He has to leave many loopholes for God to enter in. In fact, if you understand rightly, a religious man is one who plans nothing - because how can we plan? And, what are our capacities for planning? We are limited. We have a small light of intelligence but it is too tiny. Trusting it totally creates a very mediocre life. The vast never enters into this mediocre life; the infinite never enters into this mediocre life; the endless never enters into this mediocre life.

Hasidism is a very revolutionary step - a great risk is involved. The risk is in dropping the mind which seems to be our only security; dropping the mind which seems to be our only certainty; dropping the mind which seems to be our only capacity. And then trusting the no-mind - call it God; trusting existence, not trusting oneself. Hasidism is a great surrender.