An anecdote:

 A peasant, carried away by his imagination, found himself in a vegetable garden stealing cucumbers. 

"I'll carry off this sack of cucumbers," he thought, "and with the money I get for them I'll buy a hen. The hen will lay eggs, she will sit on them and hatch a brood of chicks, and I'll feed the chicks till they grow, then I'll sell them and buy a suckling pig. I'll feed the suckling pig till it grows into a sow, I'll breed her, and she'll have a litter of pigs and I'll sell them. With the money I get for the pigs I'll buy a house with a garden; I'll plant cucumbers in the garden, and I won't let anyone steal them - I'll keep guard over them. I'll hire a strong watchman, and from time to time I'll go out to the garden and shout, 'Hey, you! Take care!'" 

The peasant was so carried away by this thought that he shouted at the top of his voice. The watchman heard him and came running. He caught the peasant and gave him a good thrashing. 

But this is how man lives: in dreams, in imagination, in projections. This is how you live. And this is not the way to live this beautiful, tremendously valuable life! This is sheer wastage! You have to become more attentive to the moment, to the present. You have to gather your consciousness. 

Consciousness is your treasure, and all the methods that have been invented, devised, down the centuries are nothing but ways to create more consciousness in you, to create more fire in you, to make your life a passionate affair, a flame. People are living dull lives, people are living absent-mindedly, people are living inattentively. How can you live with so much inattention around you? 

Inattention is darkness, attention is light. And this treatise will teach you how to create more light in you, so that one day ---> the Golden Flower. 

The sutras:

Master Lu-tsu said:

Consciousness Flows Outwardly Towards an Object - Extroversion

Consciousness flows outwardly - this is a fact, there is nothing to believe in it. When you look at an object, your consciousness flows towards the object.

For example, you are looking at me. Then you forget yourself, you become focused on me. Then your energy flows towards me, then your eyes are arrowed towards me. This is extroversion. You see a flower and you are enchanted, and you become focused on the flower. You become oblivious of yourself, you are only attentive to the beauty of the flower. Attention

This we know. Every moment it is happening. A beautiful woman passes by and suddenly your energy starts following her. We know this outward flow of light. This is only half of the story. But each time the light flows out, you fall into the background, you become oblivious of yourself.

Extroversion + Introversion

The light has to flow back so that you are both the subject and the object at the same time, simultaneously, so that you see yourself. Then Self-knowledge is released. Ordinarily, we live only in this half way -> half-alive, half-dead -> that's the situation. And slowly, slowly light goes on flowing outward and never returns. You become more and more empty inside, hollow. You become a black hole. 

This is exactly what happens on a greater scale in the universe. Physicists have now discovered black holes. Taoists discovered black holes long before, but they were not concerned about the black holes there in the faraway space, they were concerned about the black holes inside you. A black hole is a state when all your energy is spent, exhausted, and you have become empty and you have forgotten completely how to go on nourishing this source of energy. 

Scientists say that sooner or later this sun will become a black hole, because continuous energy is being released but nothing is returning to it. It is an immense source of energy. For millions of years it has been giving light to the solar system. For millions of years trees have been growing, flowers flowering, man living, animals moving, birds flying, because of the sun's energy. But the sun is becoming spent. Slowly slowly, one day it will collapse; there will be no more energy left. Suddenly all light will disappear, the last rays will disappear from it. Then it will be a black hole.

And that's how many people live their life: they become black holes because of this constant extroversion. You see this, you see that, you are continuously seeing without ever returning the energy to the seer. In the day you see the world, in the night you see dreams, but you go on remaining constantly attached to objects. This is dissipating energy. By the time a man is thirty he is almost finished; then he is a black hole. People die near-about thirty, although they are buried near-about seventy - that is another matter - but they die near-about thirty. 

I see a grain of truth in the hippie notion: "Don't trust a man over thirty." There is a grain of truth in it, because it is very rare to find a man beyond thirty who is alive. People become black holes, spent, utterly exhausted. They go on dragging somehow; they live without being alive, as if just the momentum of the past helps them to remain alive. 

It happens: if you love bicycling, you have to pedal the bicycle. But sometimes you can just stop pedaling and out of the momentum created by the past pedaling the bicycle goes on for a while without pedaling. And if it is a downward slope, it can go far. And after thirty or thirty-five it is a downward slope. Thirty-five is the peak; if seventy is the average age, then thirty-five is the peak. After thirty-five you are on a downward slope; you can go on rolling down without any energy. 

The Taoist experience is that this energy that you spend in your extroversion can be more and more crystallized rather than spent if you learn the secret science of turning it backwards -> Turning the Key. It is possible; that is the whole science of all methods of concentration. 

Just standing before a mirror some day, try one small experiment. You are looking at the mirror, your own face in the mirror, your own eyes in the mirror. This is extroversion: you are looking into the mirrored face - your own face, of course, but it is an object outside you. Then, for a moment, reverse the whole process. Start feeling that you are being looked at by the reflection in the mirror - not that you are looking at the reflection but the reflection is looking at you - and you will be in a very strange space. Just try it for a few minutes and you will be very alive, and something of immense power will start entering you. You may even become frightened because you have never known it; you have never seen the complete circle of energy.

And although it is not mentioned in Taoist scriptures this seems to me the most simple experiment anybody can do, and very easily. Just standing before the mirror in your bathroom, first look into the reflection: you are looking and the reflection is the object. Then change the whole situation, reverse the process. Start feeling that you are the reflection and the reflection is looking at you. And immediately you will see a change happening, a great energy moving towards you. In the beginning it may be frightening because you have never done it and you have never known it; it will look crazy. 

You may feel shaken, a trembling may arise in you, or you may feel disorientated, because your whole orientation up to now has been extroversion. Introversion has to be learned slowly, slowly. But the circle is complete. And if you do it for a few days you will be surprised how much more alive you feel the whole day. Just a few minutes standing before the mirror and letting the energy come back to you so the circle is complete... And whenever the circle is complete there is a great silence. 

The incomplete circle creates restlessness. When the circle is complete it creates rest, it makes you centered. And to be centered is to be powerful - the power is yours. And this is just an experiment; then you can try it in many ways.

Looking at the rose flower, first look at the rose flower for a few moments, a few minutes, and then start the reverse process: the rose flower is looking at you. And you will be surprised how much energy the rose flower can give to you. And the same can be done with trees and the stars and with people. And the best way is to do it with the woman or man you love. Just look into each other's eyes. First begin looking at the other and then start feeling the other returning the energy to you; the gift is coming back. You will feel replenished, you will feel showered, bathed, basked in a new kind of energy. You will come out of it rejuvenated, vitalized. 

Master Lu-tsu said:

This is what they mean by moving light in a circle. Your light is moving in an arc, it simply goes out and never comes back. You become a black hole sooner or later. If the circle is complete you will become a white hole. Now, after black holes, physics is discovering white holes too. A white hole is very pregnant with energy just the opposite of the black hole. 

Heaven and earth mean inner and outer, above and below, God and the world, the invisible and the visible, the unknowable and the knowable. Heaven represents God and the earth represents the manifested world. They become one when the circle is complete. Then you are not only 'dust to dust'; something of the sky has penetrated you. Then you are no longer just earthly, no more just a human being; you have become divine. 

Remember the root of the word 'human': it comes from 'humus', humus means the earth. Man is made of the earth, that's why man is called human. Man is dust, hence he is called human. When the dust starts becoming luminous with the divine, then you know the splendour of life. And that is possible if the energy comes back. And it can be brought back from everywhere; there is no problem in it, you just have to practise the secret. And once you have got the knack of it, you will find it everywhere.

Looking at a green tree you can be so alive - as if the whole sap of the tree has flown towards you, the whole juice of the tree has gone into your being. Looking at the moon, and you will be surprised: there is no need to get drunk with any alcohol or any other drug, with the moon you can become a drunkard. The moon can return so much energy if you know how to take it back. 

In India, in the ancient Rig Veda, there is talk of SOMA. Scientists think that SOMA is something like LSD. Scientists think it must have been a kind of mushroom that has disappeared from the Himalayas because of the change in the climate or something. Or maybe it has not disappeared, maybe people have just forgotten about it. It may be still growing somewhere in the deep valleys of the Himalayas and we have simply forgotten what it is. Maybe the ancient seers knowingly helped humanity to forget about it; it may have proved too dangerous. 

Soma

Aldous Huxley says that SOMA was the ultimate drug, and in the future when we will have discovered the ultimate LSD we will again call it SOMA. But you will be surprised to know that in Sanskrit SOMA is another name for moon. Hence, Monday in Hindi is called SOMWAR, the day of the moon. SOMA is another name for the moon. It is not a mushroom, it is not some kind of LSD, it is not a drug, it is a secret science of getting in communion with the moon. And just as the ocean is affected by the moon, if you can get the energy back from the moon, you will be surprised: great juice, great nectar, showers on you. You can be drunk without getting drunk on any drug. 

The moon can affect you to the very core of your being. And it will make you cool and calm, because the moon is the feminine energy. Just as when you embrace a woman that you love and suddenly you feel great calm and quietude arising in you, exactly the same happens on a greater scale when energy returns to you from the moon. The moon is the feminine principle, just as the sun is the masculine principle. The moon is yin, the sun is yang. The moon can mother you. There is no need to go in search to the Himalayan valleys for some mushroom, that mushroom is always there in the sky; it is the moon. You have to learn the secret of how to get energy back from the moon. 

Sun Temple of Konarak

There have been secret methods to get energy from the moon and from the sun too. Sun worship was born out of a certain technique; great temples of the sun arose. The Sun Temple of Konarak was just an expression of gratitude to the sun. It was not just worship, it was a science - how to get yang energy in you. It is particularly good for women to get sun energy in them so that their hidden, dormant yang becomes active, and it is good for men to get moon energy so that their dormant feminine principle becomes alive, moving again. It is good for a woman to be a sun worshipper and good for a man to be a moon worshipper.

But the worship has not to be just a ritual, it has to be this method.