THE SONG CONTINUES:

CUT THE ROOT OF A TREE AND THE LEAVES WILL WITHER; CUT THE ROOT OF YOUR MIND AND SAMSARA FALLS. THE LIGHT OF ANY LAMP DISPELS IN A MOMENT THE DARKNESS OF LONG KALPAS; THE STRONG LIGHT OF THE MIND IN BUT A FLASH WILL BURN THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE.

WHOEVER CLINGS TO MIND SEES NOT THE TRUTH OF WHAT'S BEYOND THE MIND. WHOEVER STRIVES TO PRACTICE DHARMA FINDS NOT THE TRUTH OF BEYOND-PRACTICE. TO KNOW WHAT IS BEYOND BOTH MIND AND PRACTICE ONE SHOULD CUT CLEANLY THROUGH THE ROOT OF MIND AND STARE NAKED. ONE SHOULD THUS BREAK AWAY FROM ALL DISTINCTIONS AND REMAIN AT EASE.

Choice is bondage, choicelessness freedom. The moment you choose something, you have fallen in the trap of the world. If you can resist the temptation to choose, if you can remain choicelessly aware, the trap disappears on its own accord, because when you don't choose you don't help the trap to be there -- the trap is also created by your choice. So this word "choice" has to be understood very deeply, because only through that understanding can choicelessness flower in you.

Why can't you remain without choosing? Why does it happen the moment you see a person or a thing, immediately a subtle wave of choice has entered in you, even if you are not aware that you have chosen? A woman passes by and you say she is beautiful. You are not saying anything about your choice, but the choice has entered, for to say of a person that she is beautiful means: "I would like to choose her." In fact, deep down you have chosen; you are already in the trap. The seed has fallen to the soil; soon there will be sprouts, there will be a plant and a tree.

The moment you say, "This car is beautiful," choice has entered. You may not be aware at all that you have chosen, that you would like to possess this car, but in the mind a fantasy has entered, a desire has arisen. When you say something is beautiful, you mean that you would like to have it. When you say something is ugly, you mean that you would not like to have it.

Choice is subtle and one has to be very minutely aware about it. Whenever you say something remember this: that saying is not only saying, not a mere saying -- something has happened in the unconscious. Don't make the distinction: this is beautiful and that is ugly, this is good and that is bad. Don't make the distinctions. Remain aloof! Things are neither bad nor good. The quality of goodness and badness is introduced by you. Things are neither beautiful nor ugly; they are simply there as they are -- the quality of being beautiful and ugly is introduced by you, it is your interpretation.

What do you mean when you say something is beautiful? Is there any criterion of beauty? Can you prove it that it is beautiful? Just standing by your side, somebody may think, "This is ugly!" -- so it is nothing objective; nobody can prove anything beautiful. Thousands and thousands of books have been written on aesthetics, and it has been a long, arduous journey for intellectuals, thinkers and philosophers to define what beauty is -- they have not yet been able. They have written great books, great treatises, they go round about and round about, but nobody has ever been able to pinpoint what beauty is. No, it seems impossible -- because there exists nothing like beauty or ugliness, it is your interpretation.

First you make a thing beautiful. This is why I say that first you create the trap and then you fall into it. First you think this face is beautiful -- this is YOUR creation, this is just your imagination, this is just your mind interpreting; this is not existential, this is just psychological -- and then you yourself fall into the trap. You dig the hole and then you fall into it and then you cry for help, and then you cry for people to come to your salvation.

Nothing is needed says tantra. You simply see the whole trick -- it is your own creation.

What do you mean that something is ugly? If man is not on the earth will there be ugliness and beauty? Trees will be there, of course, and they will bloom; of course, rains will come, and summer and seasons will follow one another -- but there will be nothing like beautiful and ugly, it will disappear with man and his mind. The sun will rise and in the night the sky will be filled with stars -- but nothing will be beautiful and nothing will be ugly. It was just man creating noise. Now he is no more there the interpretations have disappeared; what will be good and what will be bad?

In nature nothing is good and nothing is bad. And remember, tantra is the loose and the natural way. It wants to bring you to the deepest, most natural phenomena of life. It wants to help you drop from the mind -- and mind creates distinctions, and mind says this is to be chosen and that has to be avoided. To this you cling, and that you avoid and escape from. Look at the whole phenomenon. Just a look is needed, nothing else; no practice is needed -- just a look at the whole situation.

The moon is beautiful; why? -- because for centuries you have been indoctrinated that the moon is beautiful. For centuries poets have been singing about the moon, for centuries people have believed -- now it has become engrained. Of course there are a few things which happen with the moon: it is very soothing, you feel calmed down, and the light of the moon gives a mysterious aroma to the whole nature; it gives a sort of hypnosis, you feel a little sleepy and awake and things look more beautiful; it gives a dreamlike quality to the world -- that's why we call madmen, lunatics. The word "lunatic" comes from the word "luna," the moon. They have gone mad, moonstruck.

The moon creates a sort of lunacy, a sort of madness, a neurosis. It may be concerned with the water in your body -- just like the sea is affected by the moon and tides come. Your body is ninety percent sea water. If you ask the physiologists they will say that something must be happening in the body because of the moon, because your body remains a part of the sea. Man has come from the sea to the earth; basically life was born in the sea. When the whole sea is affected, of course all sea animals are affected by the moon, they are part of the sea, and man has also come from the sea. Very very long he has traveled, but it makes no difference; the body still reacts in the same way. Ninety percent of your body is water, and not only water, sea water, with the same chemicals, same saltiness.

In the womb the child swims for nine months, floats in sea water; the mother's womb is filled with sea water. That's why when women are pregnant they start using, eating more salt. More salt is needed for their womb, to keep the same balance of saltiness. And the child passes through all the phases humanity has passed through. In the beginning he is just like a fish, he moves into the ocean of the mother's womb, floats. By and by, in nine months he passes millions of years. Physiologists have come to realize that he passes through all the stages of life in nine months.

That may be, that the moon affects you, but there is nothing like beauty -- it is a chemical phenomenon.

Certain eyes you feel are very beautiful. What is happening? Those eyes must have a quality, a chemical quality, an electric quality in them, they must be releasing some energy -- you become affected by them. You say some eyes are hypnotic, like Adolf Hitler's eyes. Just the moment he sees you something happens in you. You say eyes are very beautiful. What do you mean by beauty? You are affected.

In fact, when you say something is beautiful you are not saying that something is beautiful, you are saying that you are affected in a nice way, that's all. When you say something is ugly, you are saying that you are affected in an antagonistic way. You are repelled or you are attracted. When you are attracted it is beauty, when you are repelled it is ugly. But it is YOU, not the object, because the same object can attract somebody else.

It happens every day; people are always amazed about other people. They say, "That man has fallen in love with that woman -- amazing!" Nobody can believe that this can happen; that woman is ugly. But to that man, that woman is the very incarnation of beauty. What to do? There can be no objective criterion, there is none.

Tantra says: remember, whenever you choose something, whenever you decide for this or against this, it is your mind playing tricks. Don't say the thing is beautiful; just simply say, "I am affected in a nice way" -- but the base remains "I." If once you transfer the whole phenomenon on the object, then it can never be solved because from the first step you missed, you missed the root. The root is you, so if you are affected it means your mind is affected in a certain way. And then that affection, that being affected, creates the trap and you start moving.

First you create a beautiful man and then you start chasing him, then you run after him. And after a few days living with a beautiful man or woman, all fantasies fall to the ground. Suddenly you become aware, as if you have been deceived, that this woman looks ordinary. And you were thinking she was a Laila or a Juliet, or you were thinking he is a Majnu or a Romeo, and suddenly, after a few days, the dreams have evaporated and the woman has become ordinary, or the man has become ordinary; then you feel disgusted, as if the other has deceived you.

Nobody has deceived and nothing has fallen from the man or woman; it is your own fantasy that has fallen -- because fantasies cannot be maintained. You can dream about them but you cannot maintain them for a long time. Fantasies are fantasies! So if you really want to continue in your fantasy, then when you see a beautiful woman, immediately escape from her as far as you can. Then you will always remember her as the most beautiful woman in the world. Then the fantasy will never come in contact with reality. Then there will be no shattering. You can always sigh and sing and weep and cry for the beautiful woman -- but never go near her!

The nearer you come, the more reality, the more objective reality, reveals itself. And when there is a clash between objective reality and your fantasy, of course you know who is going to be defeated -- your fantasy. Objective reality cannot be defeated.

This is the situation. And tantra says become aware: nobody is deceiving you except yourself. The woman was not trying to be very beautiful, she was not creating the fantasy around her, YOU created it around her; you believed it, and now you are at a loss what to do, because the fantasy cannot be continued against reality. A dream has to break -- and that is the criterion.

Hindus in the East have made a criterion of truth: they say truth is that which lasts forever, forever, forever; and untruth is that which lasts only for a moment. No other distinction is there. The momentary is the untrue and the everlasting is the truth. And life is everlasting; existence is everlasting. Mind is momentary -- so whatsoever mind gives to life remains momentary; it is a color that the mind gives to the life, it is an interpretation. By the time the interpretation is complete, the mind has changed. You cannot maintain the interpretation because mind cannot be maintained for two consecutive moments in the same situation in the same state. Mind goes on changing, mind is a flux. It has already changed -- by the time you realize that this man is beautiful, the mind has already changed. Now you will be falling in love with something which is there no more, even in your mind.

Tantra says: understand the mechanism of the mind and cut the root. Don't choose, because when you choose you get identified. Whatsoever you choose you become, in a certain way, one with it.

If you love a car, you become one with that car in a certain way. You come closer and closer, and if the car is stolen, something of your being is stolen. If something goes wrong with the car, something goes wrong with you. If you fall in love with a house you become one with the house. Love means identification; coming so close, as if you put two wax candles closer, closer, closer, and put them very close -- they become one. The heat, the burning of the flame... by and by they become one. This is identification. Two flames coming closer and closer and closer, they become one.

And when you are identified with something you have lost your soul. This is the meaning of losing your soul in the world: you have become identified with millions of things, and with everything a part of you has become a thing. Choice brings identification. Identification brings a hypnotic state of sleep.

Gurdjieff has only one thing to teach to his disciples and that is not to be identified. His whole school, all his techniques, methods, situations, are based on one single base, and that base is: not to be identified.

You are crying; when you are crying, you have become one with the crying. There is nobody to watch it, there is nobody to see it; be alert and aware of it -- you are lost in crying. You have become the tears and the red, swollen eyes and your heart is in a crisis. Teachers like Gurdjieff, when they say not to be identified, they say, "Cry, nothing is wrong in it, but stand by the side and look at it -- don't be identified." And it is a wonderful experience if you can stand by the side. Cry, let the body cry, let the tears flow, don't suppress it because suppression helps nobody, but stand by the side and watch.

This can be done -- because your inner being is a witness, it is never a doer. Whenever you think it is a doer there is an identification. It is never a doer. You can walk the whole earth -- your inner being never walks a single step. You can dream millions of dreams -- your inner being never dreams a single dream. All movements are on the surface. Deep in the depth of your being there is no movement. All movements are on the periphery, just like a wheel moves, but at the center nothing moves. At that center everything remains as it is, and on the center the wheel moves.

Remember the center! Watch your behavior, your actions, your identifications, and a distance is created; by and by a distance comes into existence -- the watcher and the doer become two. You can see yourself laughing, you can see yourself crying, you can see yourself walking, eating, making love; you can act many things, whatsoever is going on around -- and you remain the seer. You don't jump and become one with whatsoever you are seeing.

This is the trouble. Whatsoever happens you start saying: you are hungry, you say, "I am hungry" -- you have become identified with the hunger. But just look inside; are you hunger, or is hunger happening to you? Are you hunger or are you simply aware of the hunger happening in the body? You cannot be hunger; otherwise, when the hunger has disappeared, where will you be? When you have eaten well and the belly is full and you are satiated, where will you be if you are hunger? Evaporated? No, then immediately you become the satiety. Before the hunger disappears a new identification has to be created; you become the satiety.

You were a child and you thought you were a child; now where are you because you are no more a child? You have become a young man or you have become old -- who are you now? Again you are identified with youth or old age.

The innermost being is just like a mirror. Whatsoever comes before it, it mirrors, it simply becomes a witness. Disease comes or health, hunger or satiety, summer or winter, childhood or old age, birth or death -- whatsoever happens, happens before the mirror, it never happens TO the mirror.

This is nonidentification, this is cutting the root, the very root -- to become a mirror. And to me this is sannyas: to become like a mirror. Don't become like a very sensitive photoplate -- that is identification. Whatsoever comes before the lens of the camera, the photoplate immediately takes it in, becomes one with it. Become like a mirror. Things come and pass and the mirror remains vacant, empty, void.

This is the no-self of Tilopa. The mirror has no self to be identified with. It simply reflects. It does not react, it simply responds. It doesn't say, "This is beautiful, that is ugly." An ugly woman stands before it, the mirror is as happy as when a beautiful woman stands before it. It makes no difference. It reflects whatsoever is the case but it doesn't interpret. It doesn't say, "Go away, you disturb me very much," or "Come a little closer, you are so beautiful." The mirror says nothing. The mirror simply watches without any distinction, friend or foe. The mirror has no distinctions to make.

And when somebody passes, goes away from the mirror, the mirror doesn't cling to it. The mirror has no past. It is not that you have passed and the mirror will cling a little to your phantom. It is not that the mirror will cling to your shadow a little while. It is not that the mirror will try to retain the reflection that has happened in it. No. You have passed, the reflection has gone; not even for a single second the mirror retains it. This is the mind of a buddha. You come before it, he is filled with you; you go away, you have gone. Not even a memory flashes. A mirror has no past, neither has a buddha. A mirror has no future, neither has a buddha. The mirror doesn't wait: "Now who is coming before me; now who am I going to reflect? I would like this person to come and not like that person." The mirror has no choice, he remains choiceless.

Try to understand this metaphor of the mirror because this is the real situation of the inner consciousness. Don't get identified by things that are happening around you. You remain centered... remain centered and rooted in your being. Things are happening and they will continue to happen, but if YOU can be centered in your mirror-like consciousness, nothing will be the same -- the whole has changed. You remain virgin, innocent, pure. Nothing can become an impurity to you, absolutely nothing because nothing is retained. You reflect, for a moment somebody is there and then everything is gone. Your emptiness is untouched. Even while a mirror is reflecting somebody, there is nothing happening to the mirror. The mirror is not changing in any way; the mirror remains the same. This is cutting the very root.

There are two types of people. One, who go on fighting with the symptoms, who go on fighting, not with the root cause, but just with the symptoms of the disease. For example, you have a fever, a one-hundred-and-five degrees fever. You can do one thing: you can go and take a good shower, a cold shower; that will cool down the body, that will bring the fever low -- but you are fighting with the symptom because the temperature is not the disease. A temperature is simply an indication that something has gone wrong in the body. The body is in a turmoil, that's why the temperature has gone high. The body is in a crisis. Inside the body something like a war is going on. Some germs are fighting with other germs, that's why the temperature has gone high. You are feeling hot -- this heat is not the problem, this heat is just a symptom. This heat is very very friendly to you, this heat simply shows you: Do something, inside there is a crisis -- and if you treat the symptom you will kill the patient. Putting ice on his head won't do. Giving him a cold shower won't help. It is destructive, because it will give a false coolness on the surface. But how, just by giving a cold shower, can you hope that the inner turmoil and the inner fight in the germs will stop? -- they will continue and they will kill you.

The fool is always treating the symptoms. The wise man looks to the root, to the very cause. He doesn't try to cool down the body, he tries to change the root cause of why the body is becoming hot. And when that root is changed, the cause is changed, the cause is treated, the temperature comes down by itself. Temperature is not the problem. But in life there are more fools than wise men. In medicine we have become wiser but in life, still not.

In life we go on doing foolish things. If you are angry you start fighting with the anger. Anger is nothing but a temperature; it is exactly a temperature, it is a fever. If you are really angry your body becomes hot, but that only shows that in your bloodstream some chemicals are being released. But that too is not the root either. Those chemicals are released for a certain reason -- because you have created a situation in which either you will have to fight or take flight.

When an animal is in a situation of danger he has two choices: one choice is to fight, another choice is to escape. For both these choices certain poisons are needed in the blood, because when you fight you will need more energy than ordinarily. When you fight you will need more blood circulating than ordinarily. When you fight you will need emergency sources of energy to work, to function -- the body has emergency sources. It collects poisons, hormones, many things in the glands; when the time comes and the need is there it releases them into the bloodstream.

That's why when you are angry you become almost three times more powerful than you are ordinarily. If your anger can be created, you can do many things you can never do ordinarily: you can throw a big rock -- ordinarily you cannot even move it. In fight it will be needed -- nature provides. Or if you have to escape and run away, then too energy will be needed because the enemy will chase you, follow you.

Everything has changed -- man has created a civilization, a society, a culture, where animal situations no longer exist -- but deep inside the mechanism remains the same. Whenever you are in a situation when you feel somebody is going to be aggressive to you, somebody is going to hit you, insult you, do some harm, immediately the body comes into the situation: it releases poisons in the bloodstream, your temperature rises high, your eyes become red, your face is more filled with blood -- you are ready to fight or take flight.

This too is not the deepest thing because this too is just a help from the body. Anger on the face, anger in the body, are not real things; they follow your mind, they follow your interpretation. It can be that there was nothing. In a lonely street on a dark night, you pass, you see a lamp-post, you think it is a ghost -- immediately the body has released something in the bloodstream, the body is preparing to fight the ghost or escape. Your mind interpreted the lamp-post as a ghost -- immediately the body follows. You think somebody is your enemy, the body follows. You think somebody is a friend, the body follows.

So the root cause is in the mind, it is in your interpretation. Buddha says, "Think that the whole earth is your friend." Why? Jesus says, "Even forgive your enemies"; not only that, "even love your enemies." Why? Buddha and Jesus are trying to change your interpretations, but Tilopa goes still higher. He says: Even if you think that all are your friends, you continue to think in terms of friendship and enmity. Even if you love the enemy you think that he is the enemy. You love because Jesus has said. Of course, you will be in a better situation than an ordinary man who hates the enemy, less anger will happen to you. But Tilopa says to THINK that someone is an enemy, to think that someone is a friend, is to divide -- you have already fallen into the trap. Nobody is a friend and nobody is an enemy. This is the highest teaching.

Sometimes Tilopa surpasses even Buddha and Jesus. Maybe the reason is that Buddha was talking to the masses and Tilopa is talking to Naropa. When you talk to a very developed disciple, you can bring the highest down. When you talk to the masses you have to make compromises. I was talking to the masses for fifteen years continuously, then by and by I felt I have to drop it. I was talking to thousands of people. But when you talk to twenty thousand people you have to compromise, you have to come down; otherwise it will be impossible for them to understand. Seeing this I dropped it. Now I like to talk only to Naropas. And you may not be aware, even if a single new person comes here and I am not aware that a new person is there, he changes the whole atmosphere. He brings you down and suddenly I feel that I have to make a compromise.

The higher you go, the higher your energy, the higher teaching can be delivered to you. And a moment comes when Naropa becomes perfect -- Tilopa becomes silent. Then there is no need to say anything, because even saying is a compromise. Then silence suffices, then silence is enough; then just sitting together is enough. Then the master sits with the disciple, they don't do anything, they just remain together -- and then only the highest glimpse happens.

So it depends on the disciples. It will depend on you, how much you can allow me to bring to you. It is not only for your own understanding -- of course, that is there -- but it will depend on you how much I can bring to the earth because it is going to come through you.

Jesus has very ordinary disciples in that way, very ordinary, because he is starting a thing and he has to make compromises -- with foolish things. Jesus is going to be caught in the night and the disciples are asking, "Master, tell us: in the Kingdom of God you will, of course, be sitting to the right of God, on the right side of the throne -- but we twelve, what will be our hierarchical situation? How will we be sitting? Who will be sitting by the side of you? and who next?" Jesus is going to die and these foolish disciples are asking something absurd. And they are worried in the Kingdom of God what will be the hierarchy, who will be next to Jesus. Of course, Jesus... they can see that much, that Jesus will be next to God, but then who will be next to Jesus?

Foolish egos. And Jesus has to compromise with these people. That's why Jesus' teachings could not go to that height where Buddha can go easily because he is not talking to such foolish people; never in his life has a single person asked such a foolish thing. But nothing to compare with Tilopa....

He never talked to the masses. He searched for a single man, a single developed soul, Naropa, and said, "Because of you, Naropa... I will tell you things which cannot be told; because of you and your trust, I have to." That's why the teaching has gone, taken a flight to the very farthest corner of the sky.

Now try to understand the sutra:

CUT THE ROOT OF A TREE AND THE LEAVES WILL WITHER; CUT THE ROOT OF YOUR MIND AND SAMSARA -- the world -- FALLS. THE LIGHT OF ANY LAMP DISPELS IN A MOMENT THE DARKNESS OF LONG KALPAS -- long ages, millennia --  THE STRONG LIGHT OF THE MIND IN BUT A FLASH WILL BURN THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE.

"CUT THE ROOTS OF A TREE AND THE LEAVES WILL WITHER." But people ordinarily try to cut off the leaves. That is not the way; the root cannot wither that way. On the contrary, if you cut off the leaves, more leaves will come into the tree; you cut off one leaf, three will come, because by your cutting off the leaves, the roots become more active to protect. So every gardener knows how to make a tree dense and thick -- you just go on pruning. It will become thicker and thicker and thicker, because you give a challenge to the roots: you cut off one leaf, the roots will send three to protect the body of the tree, because leaves are the body surface of the tree.

Leaves are not just there for your enjoyment, to see and for you to sit under the shade; no, leaves are the tree's body surface. Through leaves the tree absorbs sunrays, through leaves the tree releases vapors, through leaves the tree is in contact with the cosmos. The leaves are the skin of the tree. You cut off one leaf and the roots take the challenge: they send three instead; they become more alert, they cannot remain sleepy. Somebody is trying to destroy them and they have to protect -- and the same happens in life also, because life is also a tree.

Roots and leaves are there. If you cut anger, three leaves will come instead; you will be thrice angry. If you cut sex, you will become abnormally obsessed with sex. Cut anything and watch and you will see that thrice is happening to you. And then the mind will say, "Cut more, this is not enough!" Then you cut more and then more comes of it -- then you are in a vicious circle. The mind will go on, "Cut more, it is still not enough." That's why so many leaves are coming. You can cut all the branches, it will make no difference because the tree exists in the root, not in the leaves.

Identification is the root and everything else is nothing but leaves. Being identified with greed, being identified with anger, being identified with sex, is the root. And remember, it is the same whether you are identified with greed, or sex, or even meditation. Love, MOKSHA, God -- it makes no difference, it is the same identification. Being identified is the root, and all else is just like leaves. Don't cut the leaves, leave them, nothing is wrong in them.

That's why tantra does not believe in improving your character. It may give you a good shape -- if you prune a tree you can make any shape out of it -- but the tree remains the same. Character is just an outer shape -- but you remain the same, no transmutation happens. Tantra goes deeper and says, "Cut the root!" That's why tantra was misunderstood too much, because tantra says, "If you are greedy, be greedy; don't bother about greed. If you are sexual, be sexual; don't bother about it at all." The society cannot tolerate such a teaching: "What are these people saying? They will create chaos. They will destroy the whole order." But they have not understood that only tantra changes the society, the man, the mind, nothing else; and only tantra brings a real order, a natural order, a natural flowering of the inner discipline, nothing else. But it is a very deep process -- you have to cut the root.

Watch greed, watch sex, watch anger, possessiveness, jealousy. One thing has to be remembered: you don't get identified, you simply watch; you simply look, you become a spectator. By and by, the quality of witnessing grows; you become able to see all the nuances of greed. It is very subtle. You become capable of seeing how subtly the ego functions, how subtle are its ways. It is not a gross thing; it is very subtle and delicate and deep-hidden.

The more you watch, the more your eyes become capable of seeing, become more perceptive, the more you see and deeper you can move, and the more distance is created between you and whatsoever you do. Distance helps because without distance there can be no perception. How can you see a thing which is too close? If you are standing too close to a mirror, you cannot see your reflection. If your eyes are touching the mirror, how can you see? A distance is needed -- and nothing can give you a distance except witnessing. You try it and see.

Move into sex; nothing is wrong in it, but remain a watcher. Watch all the movements of the body; watch the energy flowing in and out, watch how the energy is falling downwards; watch the orgasm, what is happening -- how two bodies move in a rhythm. Watch the heartbeat -- faster and faster it goes, a moment comes when it is almost mad. Watch the warmth of the body; the blood circulates more. Watch the breathing; it is going mad and chaotic. Watch the moment when a limit comes to your voluntariness and everything becomes involuntary. Watch the moment from where you could have come back, but beyond that there is no return. The body becomes so automatic all control is lost. Just a moment before the ejaculation you lose all control, the body takes over.

Watch it: the voluntary processes, the nonvoluntary process. The moment when you were in control and you could have gone back, the return was possible, and the moment when you cannot come back, the return has become impossible -- now the body has taken over completely, you are no more in control. Watch everything -- and millions of things are there. Everything is so complex and nothing is as complex as sex, because the whole bodymind is involved -- only the witness is not involved, only one thing remains always outside.

The witness is an outsider. By its very nature the witness can never become an insider. Find out this witness and then you are standing on a top of the hill, and everything goes in the valley and you are not concerned. You simply see; what is your concern? It is as if it is happening to somebody else. And it is the same with greed and it is the same with anger; everything is very complex. And you will enjoy it if you can watch -- negative, positive, all the emotions. You simply remember one thing, that you have to be a watcher; then the identification is broken, then the root is cut. And once the root is cut, once you think you are not the doer, everything suddenly changes. And the change is sudden, there is no gradualness to it.

CUT THE ROOT OF THE TREE AND THE LEAVES WILL WITHER, CUT THE ROOT OF YOUR MIND AND SAMSARA FALLS.

The moment you cut the root of the mind, the identification with it, the samsara falls; the whole world falls like a house of cards. Just a small wind of awareness and the whole house falls. Suddenly you are here, but no more in the world -- you have transcended. You can live just the old way, doing the old things -- but nothing is old, because you are no longer the old. You are a perfectly new being -- this is rebirth. Hindus call it DWIJ, twice-born. A man who has attained to this is twice-born, this is a second birth -- and this is the birth of the soul. This is what Jesus means by resurrection. Resurrection is not the rebirth of the body; it is a new birth of consciousness.

CUT THE ROOT OF YOUR MIND AND SAMSARA FALLS. THE LIGHT OF ANY LAMP DISPELS IN A MOMENT THE DARKNESS OF LONG LONG KALPAS... long long ages.

So don't be worried about how a sudden light will dispel the darkness of many, many millions of lives. It dispels it because darkness has no density to it, darkness has no substance to it. Whether one moment old or many thousands of years old, it is the same. Absence cannot grow more or less, absence remains the same. Light is substantial, it is something -- darkness is just an absence. The light is there and darkness is there no more.

It is not that the darkness is dispelled really, because there was nothing to be dispelled. It is not that when you burn the light, the darkness goes out -- there was nothing to go out. In fact there was nothing, just the absence of light. Light comes and darkness is not.

THE STRONG LIGHT OF THE MIND IN BUT A FLASH WILL BURN THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE.

Buddhists use "mind" in two senses: mind with a small "m" and Mind with a capital "M." When they use Mind with a capital "M," they mean the witness, consciousness. When they use mind with a small "m" they mean the witnessed. And both are mind -- that's why they use the same word for both -- with just a small difference, with a capital "M." With a capital "M" you are the witness and with a small "m" you are the witnessed -- thoughts, emotions, anger, greed, everything.

Why use the same word? Why create confusion? There is a reason for it -- because when the Mind with a capital "M" arises, the mind with the small "m" is simply absorbed in it. As rivers fall into the ocean, the millions of minds around the great Mind all fall into it, the energy is reabsorbed.

Greed, anger, jealousy -- they were energies moving outwards, centrifugally. Suddenly when the Mind with capital "M" arises, the witness sits there silently watching and all the rivers change their course. They were going centrifugally towards the periphery; suddenly they turn back, they become centrifugal; they start falling into the great Mind -- everything is absorbed. That's why the same word is used.

THE STRONG LIGHT OF THE MIND IN BUT A FLASH WILL BURN THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE.

Just in a single moment all ignorance is burned -- this is sudden enlightenment.

WHOEVER CLINGS TO MIND SEES NOT THE TRUTH OF WHAT'S BEYOND THE MIND.

If you cling to the mind, thoughts, emotions, then you will not be able to see that which is beyond the mind -- the great Mind -- because if you cling, how can you see it? If you cling, your eyes are closed by your clinging. And if you cling to the object, how can you see the subject? This "clinging-ness" has to be dropped.

WHOEVER CLINGS TO MIND is identified, and SEES NOT THE TRUTH OF WHAT'S BEYOND THE MIND. WHOEVER STRIVES TO PRACTICE DHARMA FINDS NOT THE TRUTH OF BEYOND-PRACTICE.

All practice is of the mind. Whatsoever you do is of the mind. Only witnessing is not of the mind, remember this.

So, even while you are doing meditation, remain a witness, continuously see what is happening. You are whirling in a dervish meditation? -- whirl, whirl as fast as you can, but remain a witness inside and go on seeing that the body is whirling. The body goes on, faster and faster and faster, and the faster the body goes, the deeper you feel that your center is not moving. You are standing still, the body moves like a wheel, you stand still just in the middle of it. The faster the body goes, the deeper you realize the fact that you are not moving, and the distance is created.

Whatsoever you are doing, even meditation -- I make no exception -- don't cling to meditation either, because a day has to come when even that clinging has to be dropped. Meditation becomes perfect when it too is dropped. When there is perfect meditation, you need not meditate.

So keep it constantly in your awareness that meditation is just a bridge; it has to be passed over. A bridge is not a place to make your house. You have to pass it and go beyond it. Meditation is a bridge; you have to be watchful about it also, otherwise you may stop being identified with anger, greed, and you may start being identified with meditation, compassion. Then you are in the same trap again; through another door you have entered the same house.

It happened once: Mulla Nasruddin came to the town bar and he was already too drunk, so the barkeeper told him, "You go away! You are already drunk and I cannot give you any more. You just go back to your house." But he was insisting, so the barkeeper had to throw him out.

He walked a long distance in search of another bar. Then he came to the same bar from another door, entered, looked at the man with a little suspicion because he looked familiar. The barman said, "I have told you once and forever that tonight I am not going to give you anything. You get away from here!" Mulla was insisting again, he was thrown out again.

He walked a long distance in search of another bar, but in that town there was only one bar. Again, from the third door, he entered, looked at the man, who looked so familiar. Mulla said, "What is the matter? Do you own all the bars in the town?"

This happens. You are thrown out from one door; you enter from another door. You were identified with your anger, your lust; now you become identified with your meditation. You were identified with your sexual pleasure; now you become identified with the ecstasy that meditation gives. Nothing is different -- the town has only one bar. Don't try to enter the same bar again and again. And from WHEREVER you enter you will find the same owner -- that is the witness. Be mindful of it, otherwise much energy is unnecessarily wasted. Long distances you travel to enter into the same thing again.

WHOEVER CLINGS TO MIND SEES NOT THE TRUTH OF WHAT'S BEYOND THE MIND.

What is beyond the mind? You. What is beyond the mind? Consciousness. What is beyond the mind? SAT-CHIT-ANAND -- truth, consciousness, bliss.

WHOEVER STRIVES TO PRACTICE DHARMA FINDS NOT THE TRUTH OF BEYOND-PRACTICE.

And whatsoever you practice, remember, practice cannot lead you to the natural, the loose and the natural, because practice means practicing something which is not there. Practicing means always practicing something artificial. Nature has not to be practiced; there is no need, it is already there. You learn something which is not there. How can you learn something which is already there? How can you learn nature, tao? It is already there! You are born in it. There is no need to find any teacher so that you can be taught -- and that is the difference between a teacher and a master.

A teacher is one who teaches you something, a master is one who helps you to unlearn all that you have already learned. A master is to help you unlearn. A master is to give you the taste of the nonpracticed. It is already there; through your learning you have lost it. Through your unlearning you will regain it.

Truth is not a discovery, it is a rediscovery. It was already there in the first place. When you came into this world it was with you, when you were born into this life it was with you, because you ARE it. It cannot be otherwise. It is not something external, it is intrinsic in you, it is your very being. So if you practice, says Tilopa, you will not know that which is beyond practice.

Remind yourself again and again, that whatsoever you practice will be a part of the mind, the small mind, the outer periphery, and you have to go beyond it. How to go beyond it? Practice, nothing is wrong in it, but be alert; meditate, but be alert -- because in the final meaning of the term, meditation IS witnessing.

All techniques can be helpful but they are not exactly meditation, they are just a groping in the dark. Suddenly one day, doing something, you will become a witness. Doing a meditation like the dynamic, or KUNDALINI or whirling, suddenly one day the meditation will go on but you will not be identified. You will sit silently behind, you will watch it -- that day meditation has happened; that day technique is no more a hindrance, no more a help. You can enjoy it if you like, like an exercise, it gives a certain vitality, but there is no need now -- the real meditation has happened.

Meditation is witnessing. To meditate means to become a witness. Meditation is not a technique at all. This will be very confusing to you because I go on giving you techniques. In the ultimate sense meditation is not a technique; meditation is an understanding, awareness. But you need techniques because that final understanding is very far away from you; deep hidden in you, but still very far away from you. Right this moment you can attain it, but you will not attain it, because your moment goes on, your mind goes on. THIS very moment it is possible and yet impossible. Techniques will bridge the gap, they are just to bridge the gap.

So in the beginning techniques are meditations; in the end you will laugh, techniques are not meditation. Meditation is a totally different quality of being, it has nothing to do with anything. But it will happen only in the end; don't think it has happened in the beginning, otherwise the gap will not be bridged.

This is the problem with Krishnamurti, and this is the problem with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi -- they are the two opposite poles. Mahesh Yogi thinks that technique is meditation, so once you are attuned to a technique -- Transcendental Meditation or any other -- the meditation has happened. This is right and wrong. Right, because in the beginning a beginner has to attune himself to some technique, because his understanding is not ripe enough to understand the ultimate. So approximately... a technique is approximately a meditation.

It is just like a small child learning the alphabet -- so we tell the child that "m" is the same letter as when you use "monkey," the monkey represents "m." With the "m" the monkey is there, the child starts learning. There is no relationship between monkey and "m." "M" can be represented by millions of things, and still it is different from everything. But a child has to be shown something. Monkey is nearer the child; he can understand the monkey, not "m." Through the monkey he will be able to understand "m" -- but this is just a beginning, not the end.

Mahesh Yogi is right in the beginning, to push you on the path, but if you are stuck with him you are lost. He has to be left, he is a primary school; good as far as it goes, but one need not always remain in the primary school. The primary school is not the university, and the primary school is not the universe; one has to pass from there. It is a primary understanding that meditation is a technique.

Then there is Krishnamurti at the other pole. He says there are no techniques, no meditations, but choiceless awareness. Perfectly right! -- but he is trying to help you enter into the university without the primary school. He can be dangerous because he is talking about the ultimate. You cannot understand it; right now in your understanding it is not possible -- you will go mad. Once you listen to Krishnamurti you will be lost, because you will always intellectually understand he is right, and in your being you will know that nothing is happening.

Many Krishnamurti followers have come to me. They say intellectually they understand: "Of course it is right, there is no technique and meditation is awareness -- but what to do?" And I tell them, "The moment you ask what to do, it means you need a technique. 'What to do?' You ask HOW to do it, you are asking for a technique. Krishnamurti will not help you. Rather, go to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi -- that will be better." But people are stuck with Krishnamurti and there are people who are stuck with Mahesh Yogi.

I am neither -- or I am both; and then I am very confusing. They are both clear, their standpoints are simple; there is no complexity in understanding Mahesh Yogi or Krishnamurti. If you understand language, you can understand them, there is no problem. The problem will arise with me because I will always talk about the beginning and will never allow you to forget the end. I will always talk about the end and always help you to start from the beginning. You will be confused because you will say, "What do you mean? If meditation is simply awareness then why go through so many exercises?"

You have to go through them; only then will that meditation help you... that will happen to you which is simple understanding.

Or you say, "If techniques are all, then why do you go on saying again and again that techniques have to be left, dropped?" ... Because then you feel: "Something learned so deeply, with so much effort and arduous labor has to be left again?" You would like to cling to the beginning. I will not allow you. Once you are on the path I will go on pushing you to the very end.

This is a problem; with me this problem has to be faced, encountered and understood. I will look contradictory. I am; I am a paradox -- because I am trying to give you both the beginning and the end, the first step and the last. Tilopa is talking of the ultimate. He is saying:

WHOEVER STRIVES TO PRACTICE DHARMA FINDS NOT THE TRUTH OF BEYOND-PRACTICE. TO KNOW WHAT IS BEYOND BOTH MIND AND PRACTICE, one should not cling, ONE SHOULD CUT CLEANLY THROUGH THE ROOT OF THE MIND AND STARE NAKED.

That's what I am calling witnessing: stare naked. Just staring naked will do, the root is cut. This staring naked becomes like a sharp sword.

ONE SHOULD THUS BREAK AWAY FROM ALL DISTINCTIONS AND REMAIN AT EASE.

Loose, natural, staring naked within yourself -- that is the final word.

But go slowly, because mind is a very delicate mechanism. If you are in too much of a hurry and you take too big a dose of a Tilopa, you may not be able to absorb and digest it. Go slowly; take proportions only which you can digest and absorb.

Even I am here, I will be saying many things because you are many, and I will be taking many dimensions because you are many. But you absorb only that which is a nourishment to you; you digest.

Just the other day a sannyasin came, a sincere seeker, but puzzled because I talked about yoga and tantra, and said that tantra is the higher teaching and yoga is a lower teaching, and he has been practicing hatha yoga for two years and feeling good. He became puzzled what to do. Don't get so easily puzzled. If you are feeling good with yoga, follow your own natural inclination. Don't allow me to confuse you.

I can be confusing to you; you simply follow your natural inclination -- loose, natural. If it is good, it is good for you. Why bother whether it is higher or lower? Let it be lower. The ego comes in; the ego says, "If it is a lower thing, then why follow?" That will not help. Follow it; it is right for you. Even if it is lower what is wrong in it? A moment will come when through the lower you will reach to the higher.

The staircase has two ends: on one end it is the lowest, on another end it is the highest. So tantra and yoga are not opposites -- complementary. Yoga is the primary, the basic, from where you have to start. But then one should not cling. A moment comes when one has to transcend yoga and move into tantra; and finally you have to leave the whole staircase -- yoga and tantra both. Alone in yourself, deep in rest, one forgets everything.

Look at me: I am neither a yogi nor a tantric. I do nothing -- no practice, no nonpractice. I cling to neither method nor to no-method. I am simply here resting, not doing anything. The staircase doesn't exist for me now, the path has disappeared; there is no movement, it is absolute rest. When one comes home there is nothing to do; one simply forgets everything and rests -- God is ultimate rest.

Remember this, because sometimes I will be talking of tantra because there are many who will be helped through it; and sometimes I will be talking about yoga, and there are many who will be helped by it. You just think of your own inclination, your own feeling -- follow it. I am here to help you to be yourself, not to distract you. But I have to talk about many things because I have to help many. So what will you do? You just go on listening to me. Whatsoever you find nourishing, you digest it; chew it well, digest it; let it become your blood and bones, the very marrow of your bones -- but follow your inclination.

And when I talk about tantra I am so absorbed with it, because that's how I am; I cannot be partial, I am total whatsoever I do. If I am talking about tantra, I am totally in it; then nothing matters, only tantra matters. That may give you a false impression. I am not talking comparatively -- nothing matters to me. Tantra is the highest, ultimate flower. This is because if I look totally at it, it is. When I am talking about yoga the same will happen again, because I am total. This has nothing to do with tantra or yoga -- it is my totality that I bring to anything. When I bring it to yoga and Patanjali, I will be again saying that this is the last.