Tantra

THE TANTRA VISION, VOL. 1

Chapter 7: Truth is neither holy nor unholy

 

 

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IT IS IN THE BEGINNING, IN THE MIDDLE, AND
THE END; YET END AND BEGINNING ARE NOWHERE ELSE.
ALL THOSE WITH MINDS DELUDED BY INTERPRETATIVE THOUGHTS ARE IN TWO MINDS AND SO DISCUSS NOTHINGNESS AND COMPASSION  AS TWO THINGS.
BEES KNOW THAT IN FLOWERS
HONEY CAN BE FOUND.
THAT SAMSARA AND NIRVANA ARE NOT TWO
HOW WILL THE DELUDED EVER UNDERSTAND?
WHEN THE DELUDED IN A MIRROR LOOK
THEY SEE A FACE, NOT A REFLECTION.
SO THE MIND THAT HAS TRUTH DENIED
RELIES ON THAT WHICH IS NOT TRUE.
THOUGH THE FRAGRANCE OF A FLOWER CANNOT BE TOUCHED,
'TIS ALL PERVASIVE AND AT ONCE PERCEPTIBLE.
SO BY UNPATTERNED BEING-IN-SELF
RECOGNIZE THE ROUND OF MYSTIC CIRCLES.

TRUTH IS. IT SIMPLY IS. IT JUST IS. It never comes into existence, never goes out of existence. It never comes, it never goes. It abides. In fact, that which abides, we call it truth. It remains. That which remains, remains for ever, is called truth. It is in the beginning, it is in the middle, it is in the end. In fact, there is no beginning, no middle, no end. It is all over.
Looked into deeply, the beginning is in it, the middle is in it, the end is in it -- it pervades all. Because only IT is. In millions of forms it is the same reality that is being expressed. Forms are different, but the substance, the essence, is the same.
Forms are like waves and the essence is like the ocean.
Remember, Tantra does not talk about God. To talk about God is a little anthropomorphic; it is to create God in man's image. It is to think about God is human terms -- that is creating a limitation. God MUST be like human beings, true -- but He must be like horses also, and He must be like dogs too, and He must be like rocks, and He must be like stars... He must be like all. Yes, man will be included AS a form, but man cannot be THE form.
Just think of God as a horse -- it looks absurd. Think of God as a dog -- it looks sacrilegious. But we go on thinking of God as man -- and it doesn't look sacrilegious? It is the human ego. Man feels very very happy when he can think in terms of God being like him. In the Bible it is said God created man in His own image -- certainly this is written by man. If horses were writing their Bible, they would not write that, certainly not. They might even write that God created the Devil in man's image, because God -- how can God create man in His own image? And man has been so cruel to horses; nothing in man seems to be divine -- ask a horse. Maybe the Devil, maybe a representative of Beelzebub, but not God at all.
Tantra drops that whole anthropomorphism. Tantra brings things to their right proportion, puts man in his right place. Tantra is a great vision. It is not centered on man. It is not centered on any partial attitude. It sees reality as it is -- in its suchness, in its TATHATA, in its thusness. It does not talk about God. Instead of God, Tantra talks about truth.
Truth is non-personal, impersonal. Truth can have the qualities of all; there is no limitation in it. The Bible says: In the beginning God created the world. Tantra says: How can there be any beginning? And how can there be any end? And when there is no beginning and no end, how can there be a middle? It is all eternity: it is not time. Tantra is a vision beyond time. In time there is a beginning and there is a middle and there is an end, but in eternity there is no beginning, no middle, no end. It simply is.
Truth is not temporal. In fact, time exists in truth as a wave, and space exists in truth as a wave. It is not vice versa. Truth does not exist in space, does not exist in time. Time and space exist in truth; they are modes of truth. Just as a horse is a form, a man is a form, so space is a form, a bigger wave, so is time.
Truth is timelessness. Truth is spacelessness. Truth is transcendence.
Truth exists by itself. Everything else exists with the support of truth. Truth is self-evident; nothing else is self-evident. Truth is the very ground of being, the ultimate substratum of existence.
Tantra does not create any ritual, does not create any worship, does not create any temple, does not create the priesthood -- they are not needed. Man can stand face to face with truth in direct relationship; no mediator is needed, no priest is needed. The priests GO on talking about truth and God and heaven and a thousand and one things, not knowing anything of what they are talking about. Words, mere words. They have not experienced. Those words are just empty.
I was reading about a very famous priest who had been feeling unwell for some time:

He called in his doctor who gave him a thorough overhaul. "Well," he said, "I will be quite frank with you: I am afraid that your lungs are not in good shape. You ought to spend a few months in Switzerland."
"Oh, dear," replied the priest. "I'm afraid I could not manage it. That will not be possible -- my finance won't allow me. I'm a poor man, you know."
"Well, it's up to you," said the doctor. "It is either Switzerland or heaven."
The priest thought for a while and then said, "Oh, alright then -- then Switzerland."

Who wants to go to heaven? -- not even the priest who continuously talks about it. It is a trick to paint death in beautiful colors, but you know all the time it is death. How can you befool yourself?
Gurdjieff used to say that if you want to get rid of religion, live near by a priest and you will get rid of religion. Maybe the ordinary human being is deceived, but how can the priest be deceived? He himself is creating the whole deception. No priest is ever deceived. They talk about one thing; they know something else. They say one thing; they do something else.
I was reading about a rabbi:

A Jew, a young man, came to his rabbi. "Rabbi, could I ask your advice on rather an important matter?"
"Certainly," came the reply.
"Well, it's like this: I am in love with two girls... that is, I think I am. Now, one is very beautiful but has no money, while the other is rather nice but very plain, although she has plenty of money. What would you do in the circumstances? If you were me, rabbi, what would you do?"
"Well," said the rabbi, "I'm sure that in your heart you love the beautiful one, so I should go ahead and marry her."
"Right!" said the fellow. "Thank you, rabbi. That's what I'll do."
As he prepared to depart, the rabbi said, "Oh, by the way, I wonder if you could give me the address of the other girl?"

The priest, the rabbi, the parson -- they know well that whatsoever they are talking about is just nonsense. It is for others -- it is meant for others.
Tantra creates no priesthood. When there is no priesthood, religion is pure. Bring in the priest and he poisons. Bring in the priest and it is BOUND to be poisoned, because the priest has his own investment in it.

A man entered into a pub, and while he was drinking he saw a drunkard coming out of the pub, somehow dragging himself, wavering. And then, suddenly, the drunkard who had come out of the pub started making gestures as if he was driving a car, and making the noises of the engine and the honking of the horn.
The newcomer was surprised. He asked the pub-owner, "Why don't you tell this poor guy what he is doing?''
And the pub-owner said, "He always does that. Whenever he has taken too much he does that. Now he will do it almost the whole night. He will go around and around in the town; he thinks he is driving a great car."
So the newcomer said, "But why don't you explain it to him?"
He said, "Why should we explain? -- he gives $1 per week to keep the car washed."

When you have an investment in somebody's illusion, you cannot destroy that illusion. You would like the illusion to continue. Once the priest comes in, he has his investment in all your illusions: illusions about God, illusions about soul, illusions about heaven, illusions about hell -- he now has a great stake. Now he depends on your illusions, he lives on your illusions -- he exploits your illusions.
Tantra is a disillusionment. It has not created any priesthood. Tantra says it is between you and truth itself, and there should be no one standing between you and truth. Let your heart be open to truth, and truth is enough. Nobody is needed to interpret it. YOU ARE ENOUGH to know what it is. In fact, the more you are full of the interpretations, the less is the possibility to know that which is.
Truth is in the beginning, truth is in the middle and truth is in the end. In fact, there is no middle, no beginning, no end -- it is all one. Truth is not passing... it abides.
This is the first sutra. Saraha says to the king:

IT IS IN THE BEGINNING, IN THE MIDDLE, AND
THE END; YET END AND BEGINNING ARE NOWHERE ELSE.

End and beginning are nowhere else. Now is truth-time, and here is truth-space. THIS very moment, truth is converging here... now. THIS very moment is the beginning, is the middle, is the end. You need not go into the past to know when the existence began. This very moment it is beginning. You need not go into the future to see when existence will end. It is ending this very moment! EACH moment is a beginning, and the middle, and the end -- because each moment existence is new, each moment it is dying and is reborn. Each moment everything goes into the state of non-manifestation and comes back into the state of manifestation.
Now there are rumors in modern physics that this Tantra attitude may be true, may be ultimately true. It may be that each moment everything disappears and comes back again, pops back again; disappears, pops back again. But the interval is so small that we cannot see it. Tantra says that's why it remains fresh, existence remains fresh.
Except for man everything is fresh, because it is only man who carries the load, the luggage of memory. That's why man becomes dirty, unclean, loaded, burdened -- otherwise the whole existence is new and fresh. It carries no past and it imagines no future. It is SIMPLY here! totally here! When you are carrying the past, much of your being is involved in the past -- a past which is not. And when you are imagining the future, much of your being is involved in the future, which is not, not yet. You are spread very thin; that's why your life has no intensity.
Tantra says to know truth one needs only one thing: intensity -- total intensity. How to create this total intensity? Drop the past and drop the future, then your whole life energy is focussed on the small herenow, and in that focussing you are a fire, you are a fire alive. You are the same fire that Moses saw on the mountain, and God was standing in the fire, and the fire was not burning Him. And the fire was not burning even the green bush; the bush was alive and fresh and young.
The whole of life is fire. To know it, you need intensity, otherwise one lives lukewarm. Tantra says there is only one commandment: Don't live lukewarm. That is not a way to live -- that is a slow suicide. When you are eating, be intensely there. The ascetics have condemned tantrikas very much; they say they are just eat-drink-be-merry people. In a way, they are true, but in a way they are wrong -- because there is a great difference between the ordinary eat-drink-be-merry person and a tantrika.
A tantrika says: This is the WAY to know truth -- but while you are eating, then let there be only eating and nothing else, then let the past disappear and the future too; then let your whole energy be poured on your food. Let there be love and affection and gratitude towards food. Chew each bite with tremendous energy, and you will have not only the taste of the food but the taste of existence -- because the food is part of existence! It brings life. It brings vitality, it brings PRANA. It makes you tick on. It helps you to remain alive. It is not just food. Food may be the container -- life is contained in it. If you taste only food and you don't taste existence in it, you are living a lukewarm life; then you don't know how a tantrika lives. When you are drinking water, become thirst! Let there be an intensity to it, so each drop of cool water gives you tremendous joy. In that very experience of those drops of water entering into your throat and giving you great contentment, you will taste God, you will taste reality.
Tantra is NOT ordinary indulgence: it is extraordinary indulgence. It is not ordinary indulgence because it indulges in God Himself. But, Tantra says, it is through the small things of life that you have the taste. There are no big things in life; everything is small. The small thing becomes big and great if you enter into it utterly, totally, wholly.
Making love to a woman or a man, be the love. Forget everything! In that moment let there be nothing else. Let the whole existence converge on your love-making. Let that love be wild, innocent -- innocent in the sense that there is no mind to corrupt it. Don't think about it! Don't imagine about it! because all that imagination and thinking keeps you thin, spread thin. Let all thinking disappear. Let the act be total! You be in the act -- lost, absorbed, gone... and then, through love, you will know what God is.
Tantra says it can be known through drinking, it can be known through eating, it can be known through love. It can be known from EVERY space, from every corner, from every angle -- because all angles are His. It is all truth.
And don't think that you are unfortunate because you were not in the beginning when God created the world -- He is creating RIGHT NOW! You are fortunate to be here. You can see Him creating THIS moment. And don't think you will miss when the world disappears with a bang -- it is disappearing right now. Each moment it is created; each moment it disappears. Each moment it is born; each moment it dies. So Tantra says let that be your life also -- each moment dying to the past; each moment being born anew. Don't carry the load; remain empty.

... AND YET END AND BEGINNING ARE NOWHERE ELSE.

They are herenow.

ALL THOSE WITH MINDS DELUDED BY INTERPRETATIVE THOUGHTS ARE IN
TWO MINDS AND SO DISCUSS NOTHINGNESS AND COMPASSION AS TWO THINGS.

NOW THERE ARE TWO WAYS to describe this experience of truth, this existential experience of that which is, the experience of suchness. There are two ways to describe it because we have two types of words: the positive and the negative. Saraha's emphasis is on the negative, because that was the emphasis of Buddha.
Buddha liked the negative very much -- for a certain reason. When you describe existence with a positive word, the positive word gives it a certain boundary; all positive words have boundaries. Negative words don't have any boundaries; the negative is unbounded. For example, if you call existence'all, God, Absolute,' then you are giving a certain boundary. The moment you call it'Absolute', the notion arises that the thing is finished; that it is no more an on-going process. You call it'Brahma', then it seems the perfection has arrived; now there is no more to it. When you call it God, you give it a definition... and existence is so vast, it cannot be defined; it is so vast that all positive words fall short.
So Buddha has chosen the negative. He calls it SHOONYAM -- nothingness, zero. Just listen to the word: nothingness. Taste it, turn it this way and that: you cannot find any boundary in it -- nothingness. It is unbounded. God? -- immediately there is a boundary. The moment you say'God', existence becomes a little smaller. The moment you say'nothingness', all boundaries disappear.
Buddhist emphasis is on the negative for this reason, but remember: Buddha does not mean by'nothing' just nothing. When Buddha says'nothingness' he means'no-thingness'. No thing can define existence because all things are in it and it is bigger than all things. It is more than all the parts put together. Now, this has to be understood -- one of the Tantra attitudes.
You look at a roseflower. You can go to the chemist; he can analyze the flower, and he will tell you of what constituents it is made -- what matter, what chemicals, what colors -- he can dissect it. But if you ask, "Where is the beauty of it?" he will shrug his shoulders. He will say, "I could not find any beauty in it. This is all that I could find -- this many colors, this much matter, these chemicals. That's all. AND I have not missed anything and nothing has been left outside. You can weigh: it is exactly the same weight as the flower. So nothing has left it." Then you must have been deluded; that beauty must have been your projection.
Tantra says beauty exists -- but beauty is more than all the parts put together. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. That is one of the Tantra attitudes, of very great significance. Beauty is more than that of which it is constituted.
Or, a small baby, bubbling with joy, giggling, happy, life is there -- dissect the small baby; put the baby on the surgeon's table. What will you find after dissection? There will be no bubbling joy, there will be no laughter, no giggling. There will be no innocence found. There will be NO life found. The moment you cut the baby, the baby is gone, the life disappears. But the surgeon will insist that nothing has left. You can weigh; the parts weigh the same as the whole baby used to weigh -- nothing has left; it is exactly the same baby. But can you convince the mother that it is the same baby? Are YOU convinced it is the same baby? And if the child belonged to the surgeon himself, would he be convinced it is the same baby? these dead limbs Lying on the table?
Something has disappeared. Maybe that something cannot be weighed, maybe that something is not measurable; maybe that something is not physical, maybe that something is not material but something has left. The baby will not dance any more, and the baby will not laugh any more, and the baby will not eat and will not drink and will not go to sleep and will not cry and will not be loving and will not be angry -- something has left.
Tantra says the total is not the whole. The sum total of the parts is not the whole -- the whole is more than the sum total of the parts. And in that moreness is the experience of life.
Nothingness means no-thingness. All things put together will not make existence -- existence is more. It is always more than its parts; that's the beauty of it, that's the life of it. That's why it is so tremendously delightful. That's why there is celebration.
So these two -- positive and negative words have to be remembered. Tantra will be using negative words, Buddhist Tantra especially. Hindu Tantra uses positive words; that's one of the differences between Hindu Tantra and Buddhist Tantra. Buddha always uses no' to describe the Ultimate, because he says once you start giving attributes, those attributes are limiting factors.
So Buddha says: Go on eliminating -- NETI, NETI; go on saying this is not, this is not, this is not. And then that which is left after ALL denials is.
So remember that nothingness does not mean emptiness -- it means fullness, but indescribable fullness. That indescribableness has been described through the word'nothing'.

ALL THOSE WITH MINDS DELUDED BY INTERPRETATIVE
THOUGHTS ARE IN TWO MINDS...

Saraha says: Those who are too much analytical, interpretative, continuously thinking in categories of mind, they are always divided, they are split. There is always a problem for them. The problem is not in existence; that problem comes from their own divided mind. Their own mind is not a single unity.
Now, you can ask the scientist also; he says mind is divided in two parts: the left and the right, and both function differently -- not only differently: both function diametrically opposite to each other. The left side mind is analytical, and the right side mind is intuitive. The left side mind is mathematical, logical, syllogistic. The right side mind is poetic, artistic, aesthetic, mystic. And they live in different categories, and there is only a very small bridge between the two, just a small link.
Sometimes it has happened that in some accident that link was broken, and the man became two. In the Second World War there were many cases when the link was broken and the man became two; then he was not one man. Then sometimes he would say one thing in the morning and by the evening he would completely forget about it and he would start saying something else. In the morning one hemisphere was working, in the evening another hemisphere is working. And these change.
Modern science has to look deeply into it. Yoga has looked very deeply into it -- Yoga says: When your breathing changes... for near about forty minutes you breath through one nostril, and then for forty minutes you breath through another nostril. Up to now modern science has not thought about it, why the breathing changes and what the implications of it are. But Yoga has thought deeply about it.
When your left nostril is working, your right mind will function; when your right nostril is working, your left mind will function. This is a sort of arrangement inside so one mind functions only for forty minutes and then it can rest. Somehow, man has felt it even without knowing exactly what it is, that after each forty minutes you have to change your work that's why in the schools, colleges, universities, they change the period after forty minutes. One part of the mind becomes tired. Forty minutes seems to be the ultimate limit, then it needs rest. So if you have been studying mathematics, it is good after forty minutes to study poetry; then you can come back to mathematics again.
This became very clear in the Second World War, that the bridge is very small, very fragile, and can be broken by any accident. And once it is broken, the man functions as two, then he is not one man; for forty minutes he is one man, for forty minutes he is another man. If he borrows money from you, after forty minutes he will deny it; he will say, "I have never taken it." And he is not Lying, remember -- he is not Lying. The mind that has taken is no more functioning, so he has no memory about it. The other mind has never borrowed; the other mind will simply, flatly deny that "Have you gone mad? I have never borrowed anything from you."
And this happens even in those whose links are not broken. You can watch your own life and you will find a rhythm -- continuously. Just a moment before, you were so loving towards your wife, and suddenly something clicks and you are no more loving. And you are worried -- because you are linked, you have a slight memory, a remembrance of just a few minutes before. You were so loving and flowing, and what happened? Suddenly the flow is not there; you are frozen. Maybe you were holding the hand of your wife and the mind has changed and another mind has come in, and the hand is in your hand! but suddenly energy is no more flowing. Now you want to leave the hand and escape from this woman. In fact, you start thinking, "What are you doing here? Why are you wasting your time with this woman? What has she got?" And you feel very much anxiety also, because just a moment before you were promising, "I will love you for ever." And you become worried because you think this is not right. "Just a moment before I promised, and I am already breaking the promise."
You are angry and you want to kill somebody -- and just a FEW minutes later that anger is gone, you are no more angry. You even start feeling compassion for the other person. You start feeling happy: "It is good that I have not killed him."
Watch your mind and you will continuously find this shift; this gear goes on changing.
Tantra says there is a state of unity, when the bridge is no more a small link but both the minds are really together. This togetherness is the real meeting of the man and the woman, because one part of the mind, the right mind, is feminine; the left mind is masculine. And when you are making love to a woman or a man, when the orgasm happens, both your minds come very close; that's why the orgasm happens. It has nothing to do with the woman; it has nothing to do with anything outside. It is just inside you. Watch....

TANTRIKAS HAVE BEEN WATCHING THE PHENOMENON OF LOVE very deeply, because they think, and they are right, that the greatest phenomenon on earth is love, and the greatest experience of humanity is orgasm. So if there is some truth, that truth must be closer in the moment of orgasm than anywhere else. This is simple logic. One need not be very logical about it: it is such an OBVIOUS thing -- that this is man's GREATEST joy, so this joy must somehow be opening a door to the infinite -- maybe very slightly, very slowly, maybe just a part of it, but something of the infinite enters into it. For a moment the man and the woman are lost, they are no more in their egos; their capsules disappear.
What happens exactly? You can ask the physiologists too. Tantra has discovered many things. A few: one, when you are making love to a woman and you feel orgasmic and happy, it has nothing to do with the woman -- the whole thing is happening within you. It has nothing to do with the woman's orgasm; they are not related at all.
When the woman is having her orgasm, she is having her orgasm -- it has nothing to do with you. Maybe you just functioned as a triggerpoint, but the woman's orgasm is her private orgasm, and your orgasm is your private orgasm. You both are together, but your orgasm is yours; and when you are having your orgasm your woman cannot share your joy, no. It is just absolutely yours. It is private. She can see something is happening -- on your face, in your body -- but that is just an observation from the outside. She cannot participate in it. When the woman is having her orgasm, you are just a spectator; you are no more a participant in it.
And even if you both are having orgasms together, then too your orgasmic joy will not be more or less; it will not be affected by the orgasm of the woman, and neither will the woman's orgasm be affected by you. You are completely private, totally in yourself -- one thing. That means all orgasm, deep down, is masturbatory. The woman is just a help, an excuse; the man is a help, an excuse -- but not a must.
The second thing that tantrikas have been watching is: when the orgasm is happening, it has nothing to with your sex centers -- nothing. Because if the sex centers are cut from the brain, you will have orgasm, but you will not have any joy. So, deep down, it is not happening at the sex center: it is happening in the brain. Something from the sex center is triggered in the brain, it is happening in the brain. And modern research agrees with it perfectly.
You must have heard the name of the famous psychologist, Delgado. He has devised small instruments: he puts electrodes in the head and those electrodes can be controlled by remote control. You can have a small box of remote control push-buttons. You can keep the box in your pocket and any time you want to have a sexual orgasm, you just push a button. It will have nothing to do with your sex center; that button will just push something in your head -- inside the head it will push those centers which are pushed by sexual energy when it is released. It will push them directly and you will have a great orgasm. Or, you can push another button and you will become immediately angry. Or you can push another button and you will fall into a deep depression. You can have all the buttons in the box and you can change your mood as you like.
When Delgado experimented with his animals for the first time, particularly with mice, he was surprised. He fixed the electrode in his most favorite mouse, who was very well trained; he had been experimenting with him for many days, and a very intelligent mouse.... He fixed his electrode in his head and gave a box to the mouse and trained him to push the button. Once he knew that when the button is pushed he has a sexual orgasm, the mouse went mad. In one day, six thousand times.... He died! because he would not go anywhere. He would not eat, he would not sleep, he would... he forgot everything. He was just going crazy pushing the button again and again and again.
This modern research into the human brain says exactly what Tantra has been saying. First, the orgasm has nothing to do with the person outside -- your woman, your man. Second it has nothing to do with your sex energy. The woman triggers your sex energy, your sex energy triggers your brain energy; a brain center is triggered -- but orgasm happens exactly there in the brain, in the head.
That's why pornography has so much appeal, because pornography can directly stimulate your brain. A beautiful woman or an ugly woman has nothing to do with your orgasm. An ugly woman can give you as beautiful an orgasm as a beautiful woman, but why don't you like the ugly woman? It does not appeal to the head, that's all. Otherwise, as far as orgasm is concerned, both are as capable. The ugliest woman or the most beautiful woman, a Cleopatra, is immaterial -- but your head, your brain, is more interested in the form, in the beauty.
Tantra says once we understand this whole mechanism of orgasm, a great understanding can arise. One step more:
Modern research agrees up to this point, that orgasm happens in the brain. The woman's orgasm happens in the right side of the brain; about that modern research is not yet capable of saying anything -- but Tantra does. The woman's orgasm happens in the right side brain, because that is the feminine center. And the male orgasm happens in the left -- that is the male brain. Tantra goes further into this work, and Tantra says when both these sides of the brain come together great joy arises, total orgasm happens.
And these sides of the brain can come together very easily -- the less analytic you are, the closer they are. That's why an interpretative mind is never a happy mind. A non-interpretative mind is happier. Primitive people are more joyous than the so-called civilized, the educated, the cultured. Animals are happier than human beings, birds are happier; they don't have the analytical mind. The analytical mind makes the gap bigger.
The more you start thinking logically, the bigger is the gap between the two minds. The less you think logically, the closer they come. The more poetic, the more aesthetic your approach is, the more they will come close and the more possibility of joy, delight, celebration, there will be.
And the last point, which I think will take many centuries for science to come to. The last point is that the joy is not happening exactly in the brain either -- it happens in the witness who is standing behind both these sides af the brain. Now, if the witness is too much attached to the male mind, then the joy will not happen so much. Or, if the witness is attached too much to the female mind, then joy will be a little more, but not so much.
Can't you see? -- women are happier creatures than men. That's why they look more beautiful, more innocent, younger. They live long, they live more peacefully, more contentedly. They are not worried so much; they don't commit suicide so much, they don't go mad so much -- the proportion is double. Man goes twice as much: in suicide also man commits twice as much, and in madness also. And all the wars, if you include them also in suicidal and murderous activities, then man has been doing nothing else. Down the centuries he has been preparing for war, killing people.
The feminine mind is more joyous because it is more poetic, more aesthetic, more intuitive. But if you are not attached to any part and you are just a witness, then your joy is utter, ultimate. This joy we have called'anand' -- bliss. To know this witness is to become one, absolutely one; then the woman and the man in you disappear completely, then they are lost into oneness. Then orgasmicness is your moment-to-moment existence. And in that state, sex disappears automatically -- because there is no need. When a person lives orgasmically twenty-four hours a day, what is the need?
In your witnessing you become orgasmic. Orgasm then is not a momentary thing -- then it is your simple nature. This is what ecstasy is.

ALL THOSE WITH MINDS DELUDED BY INTERPRETATIVE THOUGHTS ARE IN
TWO MINDS AND SO DISCUSS NOTHINGNESS AND COMPASSION AS TWO THINGS.

Saraha says that the existence is nothingness, but don't be worried -- by'nothingness' we don't mean that it is empty of everything. In fact, we mean it is full -- it is so full that we call it nothing. If we call it something, that will make a demarcation, and it is unbounded -- so we call it nothing. But Buddhists have been asked again and again: If it is nothing, then from where does the compassion come? then why does Buddha talk about compassion?
Saraha says: Nothingness and compassion are two aspects of the same energy. Nothingness, in existence, means: I have to be non-egoistic. Ego means: I am something. If existence is nothing and I have to go into participation with this existence, if I have to become part of this existence, I have to drop the ego. The ego is making me somebody, is giving me a definition, a limitation. When existence is without any self, it is nothingness -- anatta -- then I have also to be a nothing; only then will these two nothings be capable of meeting with each other and dissolving into each other. I have to become a no-ego, and in that no-ego is compassion.
With ego is passion: with no-ego is compassion. With ego there is violence: with no-ego there is love. With ego there is aggression, anger, cruelty: with no-ego there is kindness, sharing, affection.
So, Saraha says compassion has not to be cultivated. If you can live in nothingness, compassion will be flowing out of you of its own accord. I have heard:

A man went to his bank manager to ask for a loan. After he had taken particulars, the bank manager said, "By rights, I should refuse your request, but I will give you a sporting chance. Now, one of my eyes is made of glass: if you can tell me which one it is I will grant you the loan."
The customer looked at the other intently for a few moments and then said, "It is your right eye, sir."
"That's correct," said the bank manager -- he could not believe it, how he had guessed it. He said, "How did you guess?"
"Well," replied the customer, "it appeared to be more compassionate, so I thought it must be a glass eye."

The ego, the calculating, cunning mind, is never compassionate, cannot be. In the very existence of the ego, there is violence. If you are, you are violent. You cannot be non-violent. If you want to be non-violent, you will have to drop your I, you will have to become a nothingness. Out of nothingness is non-violence. It is not a question of practising it; it is a question of becoming nobody, then it flows. It is the block of the'I' that is blocking the flow of your energies; otherwise, compassion is easy.

Saraha says: Nothingness and compassion are not two things. You be nothing and there will be compassion. Or, you attain to compassion and you will find you have become nothing, a nobody.
This characterization of existence as nothingness is a great step towards annihilation of the ego. And this is one of the greatest contributions of Buddha to the world. Other religions go on cultivating in subtle ways the same ego. The righteous person starts feeling, "I am righteous"; the moralist thinks, "I am more moral than others." The man who practises religion thinks himself more religious than others, but these are all ego qualities, and these are not going to help ultimately. Buddha says cultivation is not the question -- understanding, awareness is needed that there is NOBODY in you!
Have you ever looked inside? Have you ever gone inside and looked around? Is there anybody? You will not find anybody. You will find silence. You will not come across anybody.
Socrates says: Know thyself! And Buddha says: If you come to know, you will not find any'thyself'; there is nobody inside, there is pure silence. You will not hit against any wall, and you will not come across any self. It is emptiness. It is as empty as existence itself. And out of that emptiness, everything is flowing; out of that nothingness, everything is flowing.

BEES KNOW THAT IN FLOWERS
HONEY CAN BE FOUND.
THAT SAMSARA AND NIRVANA ARE NOT TWO
HOW WILL THE DELUDED EVER UNDERSTAND?

HAVE YOU WATCHED IT? Around a small beautiful lake there are many flowers. Frogs may be sitting just by the roots of the flowers, but they don't know that flowers have honey in them.

BEES KNOW THAT IN FLOWERS
HONEY CAN BE FOUND.

Waterfowl, swans, fish and frogs do not know -- even when they are living just by the side of the plants. To know that flowers have honey, one has to become a bee. Saraha says the tantrika is like a bee and the ascetic is like a frog. He lives by the side of the flowers, and he is not at all aware. Not only is he not aware: he denies. He thinks bees are indulgent, that bees are fools, that they are destroying themselves.
Saraha says ascetics are like frogs and the tantrika is like a bee. In the phenomenon of sex there is hidden the sublime. In the energy of sex there is a key which can open the door of existence. But frogs will not know it. Tantra says it is such an obvious fact, that out of sex energy life is born -- that means that sex must be at the very core of life. Life comes through sex energy. A new child is born through sex energy, a new being enters into existence, a new guest comes into existence -- through sex energy! Sex energy is the most creative energy. Certainly, if we look deep into it we may find even more, greater, more creative possibilities of it.
Tantra says sex is the lowest rung of the sex energy, of libido. If you enter into it with more awareness and you search into it deeply, you will find the highest possibility, Samadhi, hidden in it.
Sex is like Samadhi fallen into the mud; it is like a diamond which has fallen into the mud. You clean the diamond; the mud cannot destroy it. The mud is only on the surface; you just wash the diamond and again it is shining with all its luster and all its glory.
In sex is hidden the diamond. In love is hidden God. When Jesus says God is love, he may have got this idea somewhere from Tantra, because the Jewish God is not love at all. It cannot come from the Jewish tradition. The Jewish God is a very angry God.
The Jewish God says, "I am very jealous, I am very angry. And if you go against me, I will take revenge." The Jewish God is a very dictatorial God. Love does not fit with the Jewish idea. From where did Jesus get this idea that God is love? Every possibility is that it came through the Tantric school of India, that it spread from the tantrikas.
Saraha was here three hundred years before Jesus. Who knows? Maybe it was Saraha and Saraha's idea which travelled. There are absolute reasons to think so. There is every possibility of Jesus' coming to India, there is every possibility of messengers spreading from India towards Israel.
But one thing is certain, that it is Tantra which has looked at God as love energy. But Christians missed. Even Jesus has given the hint that God is love. they have missed. They have interpreted it as God-loving -- they missed it. Jesus is not saying God is loving: Jesus is saying God is love -- God is equal to love. It is a formula: love is equal to God. If you go deep into love you will find God, and there is no other way to find God.

BEES KNOW THAT IN FLOWERS
HONEY CAN BE FOUND.
THAT SAMSARA AND NIRVANA ARE NOT TWO
HOW WILL THE DELUDED EVER UNDERSTAND?

Who are these deluded people? The frogs, the ascetics, the so-called mahatmas, who go on denying the world because they say God is against the world. This is foolish! If God is against the world, then why does He go on creating it? He can simply stop it any moment if He is so against it. If He agreed with your mahatmas, then He would have stopped it long before. But He goes on creating. He does not seem to be against it -- He seems to be absolutely for it.
Tantra says God is not against the world: Samsara and Nirvana are not two -- they are one. The ascetic fights sex energy and through that fighting, he starts falling away from God, falling away from life, falling away from the vital source of life. And then there are perversions -- bound to be. The more you fight with something, the more perverted you become. And then you start finding tricks, backdoors to enter into it again.
So the ascetic, on the surface, fights with sex, fights with life, and deep down starts fantasizing about it. The more he represses, the more he becomes obsessed with it. The ascetic is the obsessed person: the tantrika is a very natural person -- he has no obsessions. But the irony is that the ascetic thinks that the tantrika is obsessed; the ascetic thinks that the tantrikas talk about sex -- "Why do they talk about sex?" -- but the real obsession is in the ascetic. He does not talk about it, or, even if he talks about it he only talks to condemn it -- but he continuously thinks about it. His mind goes on reeling around and around it.
It is difficult to go against God -- even if you go, your failure is certain. Mind will find some way or other.
I have heard:

A Jew was talking to a friend and said, "I prefer to sleep alone. I believe in celibacy. In fact, ever since we were married, my wife and I have had separate rooms."
"But," said the friend, "supposing during the night you feel that you would like a little love, what do you do?"
"Oh," replied the other, "I just whistle."
The friend was astonished, but went on to ask, "But supposing it is the other way round and your wife feels that she would like a little loving -- what happens then?"
"Oh," he replied, "she comes to my door and taps, and when I answer says,'Ikey, did you whistle?'"

Whether you stay in the same room or not, what does it matter? Mind will find some way -- the mind will start whistling. And the woman cannot whistle, of course; she is expected not to be so vulgar as to whistle. But she can come and knock on the door and can ask, "Ikey, did YOU whistle?"
Mind is very cunning. But one thing is certain: you cannot escape the reality of life. If you try to escape, your cunning mind will find ways -- and will become more cunning. And you will be more in the trap of the mind. I can't see any ascetic ever realizing truth -- impossible. He denies life: how can he realize truth?
Truth has to be alive. Truth has to be with life, in life. That's why to my sannyasins I never say leave life -- I say be in life. Be totally in it! There is the door, somewhere in the marketplace.

THAT SAMSARA AND NIRVANA ARE NOT TWO, says Saraha,
HOW WILL THE DELUDED EVER UNDERSTAND?

But the frogs? how will they ever understand? Become a bee! Let this be a deep remembrance in you, at least for my sannyasins: Become a bee; don't become a frog. These flowers of life are carrying the honey of God... collect.

WHEN THE DELUDED IN A MIRROR LOOK
THEY SEE A FACE, NOT A REFLECTION.
SO THE MIND THAT HAS TRUTH DENIED
RELIES ON THAT WHICH IS NOT TRUE.

THE MIND IS LIKE A MIRROR -- it only reflects, it can only give you a shadow experience; never the real, never the original. It is like a lake, and you can see the full moon in the lake reflected, but the reflection is not the real moon. And if you start thinking that the reflection is the real moon, you will never find the real moon.
Says Saraha:

WHEN THE DELUDED IN A MIRROR LOOK
THEY SEE A FACE, NOT A REFLECTION.

What is the difference in seeing a face and not a reflection? When you start seeing the face in the mirror, you are deluded; you are thinking, "That is my face." That is not your face -- that is just the reflection of your face. In the mirror there can be no real face, only reflections.
Mind is a mirror! It reflects reality, but if you start believing in that reflection, you are believing in untruth, in the image. And that very belief will become a barrier. Saraha says if you want to know the truth, put the mind aside -- otherwise it will go on reflecting and you will go on looking at the reflection. Put the mind aside! If you really want to know the real, then go against the reflection.
For example, you see the full moon reflected in the lake. Now, where are you going to seek the full moon? Are you going to take a jump into the lake? Are you going to dive deep into the lake to find the moon? Then you will never find it. You may even miss yourself. If you really want to see the real moon, then go against the reflection, just in the diametrically opposite direction -- then you will find the moon. Don't go in the mind; go diametrically opposite to the mind.
Mind analyzes: you synthesize. Mind believes in logic: don't believe in logic. Mind is very calculative, mind is very cunning: you be innocent. Go in the opposite direction! Mind asks for proofs, reasons -- don't ask for proofs and reasons. That is the meaning of trust: go into the opposite direction. Mind is a great doubter. If you doubt, you go into the mind. If you don't doubt, you go against the mind. Doubt not! Life is to be lived, not to be doubted. Life is to be trusted. Go hand in hand with trust and you will find truth: go with doubt and you. will go astray.
The search for truth is the search in the opposite direction of the mind because mind is a mirror, it reflects. And to put the mind aside is what meditation is all about; to put the thoughts aside, thinking aside, mentation aside, is what meditation is all about.
When you can look into reality without thoughts reflecting it, truth is herenow, then you are truth and all is truth. Mind is the great faculty of delusion, illusion, of dreaming.

THOUGH THE FRAGRANCE OF A FLOWER CANNOT BE TOUCHED,
'TIS ALL PERVASIVE AND AT ONCE PERCEPTIBLE.
SO BY UNPATTERNED BEING-IN-ITSELF
RECOGNIZE THE ROUND OF MYSTIC CIRCLES.

A great sutra:

THOUGH THE FRAGRANCE OF A FLOWER CANNOT BE TOUCHED...

You cannot touch the fragrance of a flower.

IT IS ALL PERVASIVE AND AT ONCE PERCEPTIBLE.

But you can smell it. You cannot see it, but you can smell it. It surrounds you. You cannot touch it; it is not tangible, it is not touchable. And if you make tangibility the criterion of truth, then you will say it is not true. Truth is not thinkable. If you think, you will miss.
Truth can be experienced, but cannot be known. Truth can be realized, but not concluded. Just as the fragrance of a flower cannot be seen by the eyes, cannot be heard by the ears... if you make it a criterion that "Unless I hear the smell I will not believe, unless I see the smell I will not believe," then you are creating barriers and you will never come to know it.
And, by and by, if you don't believe it, if you don't believe at all, you will lose the faculty of smelling it -- because any faculty that is not used, not trusted, falls out of use, becomes by and by crippled. Trust is a faculty! You have been with doubt so long, married with doubt so long, that you say, "I will first need rational proofs -- I doubt." So you remain with doubt, and truth can be known only through trust, just as fragrance can be known only by smell. It is there if you smell. If you trust, truth is there.
SHRADDHA -- trust, faith -- simply indicates one thing: that the faculty to know truth is not doubt, is not skepticism. If you insist on doubt, you remain with doubt.

IT IS ALL PERVASIVE AND AT ONCE PERCEPTIBLE.

With trust, immediately it is there -- at once! Not a single moment

SO BY UNPATTERNED BEING-IN-ITSELF...

And what is trust? I have never come across such a beautiful definition of trust:

SO BY UNPATTERNED BEING-IN-ITSELF...

Don't pattern yourself! All patterning is a sort of armoring. All patterning is a sort of protection. All patterning is a way to avoid. Be open, don't be patterned.

SO BY UNPATTERNED BEING-IN-ITSELF...

If you are not patterned, if you are simply open, you don't have any armour, you are not protecting yourself by logic, doubt, this and that, you are simply vulnerable... unpatterned, unprotected, under the open sky, all doors open. Let friend or foe enter, anybody, but all doors are open. In that openness, you are being-in-itself, you are in a state of suchness, you are empty, you are a nothingness, and you will recognize what truth is:
RECOGNIZE THE ROUND OF MYSTIC CIRCLES.

And then you will see that out of this suchness two circles are arising: one is of Nirvana, another is of Samsara. Two waves are arising in this ocean of suchness: one is of matter, another is of mind -- but both are waves. And you are beyond both. Now there is no division, no distinction. Truth is neither mind nor matter, truth is neither Samsara nor Nirvana, truth is neither unholy nor holy -- all distinctions have disappeared.
If you bring your mind to, the ultimate reality, it will not allow you to see the ultimate reality. It will bring something of its own falsities with it.
I was reading one anecdote -- meditate over it:

A man arrived at the Pearly Gates, and on being asked his name replied, "Charlie Grab-all."
"I don't think we have any notice of your coming," he was informed. "What was your occupation in earthly life?"
"Scrap metal merchant," the visitor said.
"Oh," said the angel, "I will go and inquire." When he returned, Charlie Grab-all had disappeared -- so had the Pearly Gates.

Charlie Grab-all: scrap metal merchant... you carry your habits to the very end.
Maybe mind is useful as far as the man-made world is concerned. Maybe mind is useful as far as thinking about matter is concerned. But to carry this mind to the innermost core of your reality IS dangerous. It will disturb there.
Let me say it in this way: doubt is helpful in the world of science -- in fact, without doubt there would be no science. Doubt is the very methodology of science. Because science has become so prevalent, has been so successful in the past, it seems that doubt has become the only methodology to inquire. So when you go in, you carry doubt -- that's not right. When you are going outwards, doubt is helpful. When you are going inwards, doubt is a barrier. Trust, less and less doubt -- if you want to come in, doubt less and less and less and let there be a moment when there is no doubt left. In that state of no-doubt, you will be at the center. If you want to know the outside world, trust will not be helpful.
That also has happened in the past in the East. We came to know the inner reality through trust, so we thought through trust we can create science also -- we were never able to create science. In the East we could not create any great science -- nothing to say about it, nothing much. Because we entered inside with trust, we thought trust was the only method of inquiry -- that was fallacious. We tried trust on the outside objective things and we failed. The East has been a failure as far as science is concerned. The West has succeeded through doubt in science; now, the same fallacy -- they think doubt is the only right, valid method to know. It is not. Now, if you try doubt in the inner world, you will fail as certainly as the East has failed in scientific growth.
Doubt is good about objects; trust is good about subjectivity. Doubt is good if you are moving further away from your center towards the periphery; trust is good if you are moving towards the center away from the periphery. Trust and doubt are like two wings.
The humanity that is going to be born in future will be capable of doubting and trusting both together. That will be the highest synthesis: the synthesis of East and West, the synthesis of science and religion. When a man is capable of doubting and trusting both -- when doubt is needed, when he is going outwards, he doubts; and when trust is needed he puts the doubt aside and trusts. And a man who is capable of both will be beyond both, certainly beyond both, because he will use both and he will know that "I am separate from both." That's transcendence, that'*beyondbothness' is great freedom. Exactly that is what Nirvana is: great freedom.

MEDITATE ON THESE SUTRAS. Saraha is saying great things in simple words. He was showering his great insight on the king. You can also partake of this great insight. You can go very deep into human reality with Saraha.

And always remember: that is the only way to go to the ultimate reality -- the human reality is the only way to go to the ultimate reality, because that is where you are. One can proceed only from the place where one is. Sex is your reality: Samadhi can be approached through it. Body is your reality: bodilessness can be approached through it. Outwardness is your reality: inwardness can be approached through it. Your eyes are looking outwards: they can be turned inwards.

 

Next: Chapter 8: Be true to love, Question 1

 

Energy Enhancement                 Enlightened Texts                 Tantra                 The Tantra Vision, Vol. 1

 

 

 
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