INVOCATION

AUM, MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT US BOTH. MAY HE NOURISH US BOTH. MAY WE BOTH ACHIEVE ENERGY. MAY THIS STUDY MAKE US BOTH ILLUMINED. MAY WE NEVER HATE EACH OTHER.

AUM, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE.

AUM, MAY MY LIMBS BECOME STRONG. ALSO, LET MY SPEECH, PRANA -- VITAL AIR -- SIGHT, HEARING, AND ALL THE SENSE ORGANS, BE VIGOROUS. THE ENTIRE EXISTENCE IS THE BRAHMAN OF THE UPANISHADS. MAY I NEVER DENY BRAHMAN; MAY BRAHMAN NOT DENY ME. LET THERE BE NO DENIAL AT ALL. LET THERE BE NO DENIAL AT LEAST ON MY PART. WHATEVER VIRTUES ARE IN THE UPANISHADS, MAY THEY ABIDE IN I WHO AM DEVOTED TO THE ATMAN -- SELF. MAY THEY ABIDE IN ME.

AUM, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE.

I do not know where to begin or where to end, because life itself is beginningless and endless. Like these hills around you or the clouds wandering above you, or like the sky, you are also beginningless and endless. Nothing ever begins or ends, and that which can have a beginning or an end is bound to be artificial. Nature remains, abides; it is always there.

So whenever a question arises of talking about the ultimate, the supreme, the innermost, the very ground of being, it becomes difficult to know where to begin and where to end because it is always there, it has always been so and it will always be so. There has never been a beginning to it and never will there be an end. So I will begin just in the middle because that is the only possible place to begin, and I will end just in the middle because there is no other way to end it.

The first thing I would like to say to you is that I have chosen this Upanishad not to comment upon it. Commentaries are already too many and they have not helped anyone. They may have harmed many, they may have become hindrances to many, but they have not helped anyone. Commentaries cannot help because commentaries are second rate. I am not going to comment on this Upanishad, rather, on the contrary, I am going to respond to it. I will just echo and re-echo.

Really, whatsoever I say will belong basically to me. The Upanishad is just an excuse. Through it I will explain myself -- remember this. Whatsoever I have felt, whatsoever I have known and lived, I would like to talk about it. I feel the same has been the case with the seers of the Upanishads. They have known, they have lived, they have experienced the same truth. Their ways of expression may be different -- their language is very ancient; it has to be decoded again so that it becomes available to you, to the contemporary mind. But whatsoever they have said, they have said the basic thing.

Whenever someone comes to be a void, whenever someone comes to be a nobody, this happens -- that which has happened to the seers of the Upanishads. Whenever you are not, the divine becomes present; whenever you are, the divine is absent.

Your presence is the problem, your absence is the door. These RISHIS have become total nobodies. We do not even know their names; we do not know who wrote these Upanishads, who communicated them. They have not signed them. No photograph of them exists, no knowledge about their lives. They have simply become absent. They have said whatsoever is true but just as a vehicle. They have not been in any way involved in the expression. They have made themselves completely absent so the message becomes totally present.

These Upanishads are eternal. They do not belong to this country, they do not belong to any religion. They do not belong, they CANNOT belong, to anybody. They belong only to those who are ready to take a jump into nothingness.

I have chosen to talk about the Upanishads because to me they represent one of the purest expressions of the ultimate that is possible, if it is possible at all. Really, it is difficult, in a sense impossible, to convey through the mind that which is known beyond mind. In a sense, it is absolutely impossible to say something about that which is felt when you are in the deepest of silences. When words do not exist within you, when verbalization ceases completely, when intellect is no more functioning, when the mind is not there at all to memorize, then it happens: then you experience. And when the mind comes back, when the memory starts functioning, when the intellect takes possession of you again, the experience has already passed.

The experience is not there now: only echoes of it, only vibrations of it are left. Only they can be captured, and through the mind only they can be expressed. That is why it has always been impossible, very very difficult, for those who have known to say something. Those who do not know anything, they can say much. But for those who know it becomes more and more difficult to say something because whatsoever they say appears false. They can compare the experience with its expressions because they have a living experience. Now they can feel what language is doing to it: it is falsifying it.

When a lived experience comes into words, it looks dead, pale. A lived experience which is total, in which your whole being dances and celebrates, when it is expressed through the intellect looks just dull, of no significance.

Those who do not know, they can talk much because they have nothing with which to compare. They have no original experience; they cannot know what they are doing. Once someone knows, he knows what a problem it is to express it.

Many have remained totally silent and many have remained completely unknown because of that -- because we can only know about someone who speaks. The moment someone speaks he enters society. When someone stops speaking he leaves society, he is no more part of it. Language is the milieu in which society exists. It is just like blood: blood circulates in you and you exist. Language circulates within society and the society exists. Without language there is no society. So those who have remained silent, they have fallen out of it. We have forgotten them. Really, we have never known them.

Somewhere Vivekananda has said -- and it is very very true -- that the Buddhas, Krishnas and Christs that we have known are not really the representatives. They are not really central, they are on the periphery. The centralmost happenings have been lost to history. Those who became so silent that they couldn't communicate with us are not known. They cannot be known: there is no way to know them. In a way Vivekananda is right but those who have become so silent that they have not uttered anything about their experience have not helped us. They have not been really compassionate enough. In a sense they have been totally selfish.

It is true that to say anything about truth is difficult, but even then it has to be tried. It MUST be tried because even a diluted truth will be helpful for those who live in total illusion. Even something which carries a very very far echo will help them to change.

It is not that Buddha is very happy with what he says. Whatsoever he says, he feels is not true. He feels the same way as Lao Tzu felt. Lao Tzu says, "That which can be said cannot be true. The moment it is said it is falsified." But still, those who live in worlds of many many illusions, those who are deeply asleep, fast asleep, for them even a false alarm may be helpful. If they can come out of their sleep, if they can be brought to a new consciousness, to a new being, even a false alarm is good. Of course, when they awaken themselves they will know that it was false -- but it will have helped.

In a sense, wherever we are and whatsoever we are, we are so false that, really, absolutely pure truth is not needed at all. It cannot penetrate you. It will not have any contact; you will not be able to understand it. Only a very diluted truth, modified -- in a sense, falsified -- can have any appeal for you, because then you can understand the language; it has been translated for you.

These Upanishads are very simple; they speak in a very heart to heart way. They are not philosophical, they are religious. They are not concerned with concepts, with theories, with doctrines, they are concerned with a lived truth -- what it is and how it can be lived. You cannot think about it, you cannot philosophize about it. You can only move into it and allow it to move into you. You can only be pregnant with it, you can only be totally absorbed in it. You can melt in it.

We will talk about the Upanishads, and I will bring my own experience as a response to them. But that is only a stepping stone. Unless you move into the very dimension, it will not be of much use. Unless you move and take a jump into the unknown, it will not help you. Or, it may even be harmful because your mind is already too much burdened, too heavy. It need not be burdened any more. I am here to unburden it.

I am not going to teach you some new knowledge. I am going to teach you only a pure type of ignorance. When I say pure ignorance, I mean innocence. I mean a mind which is totally vacant, open. A mind that knows is never open: it is closed. The very feeling that "I know" closes you. And when you feel that "I don't know" you are open: you are ready to move, ready to learn, ready to travel.

I will teach you ignorance, unlearning, not knowledge. Only unlearning can help you. The moment you unlearn, the moment you again become ignorant, you become childlike, you become innocent. Jesus says, "Only those who are like small children will be able to enter God's kingdom." I will try to make you like small children.

Be courageous. Effort will be needed for it. It is the greatest challenge that can be given to you. Unless you accept the challenge you will not be able to understand the Upanishads -- or me.

For this challenge a few things are to be understood as basic requirements. The first: put aside all your knowledge. For these eight days, kindly be ignorant. You will not lose that knowledge. If you still feel that it is good after eight days, you can start carrying it again. But for these eight days please put down all the burdens of your mind. Whatsoever you know, do not allow it to interfere here because if you allow it to interfere here, I will not be able to create the communion for which I have called you.

It is going to be a great experiment. If you put aside your knowledge -- and you can. Just a decision is needed that "For these eight days I will not carry my knowledge; I will not say 'I know'; I will just feel that I do not know anything." If you can feel this, you are ready to enter into the unknown -- because the unknown can be entered only when there is no knowledge. Knowledge can lead you only to the known; only ignorance can lead you to the unknown. Ignorance is just wonderful if you can understand the meaning of it.

Put aside whatsoever you know. And what do you know really? You simply go on pretending that you know. You go on talking about God and about the soul and about heaven and hell, and you do not know anything. This pretension costs too much because, by and by, you yourself are deceived by it.

For these eight days the first thing to be remembered is to be ignorant. Do not discuss, do not argue, do not question, do not answer anybody. If you are ignorant, how can you discuss and how can you argue? If you are ignorant, how can you question? Really, if you are ignorant how can you even question? What can you question? Your questions also arise out of your so-called knowledge. And what is there to answer? If you can feel that you are ignorant you will become silent, because what is there to think about?

Your knowledge goes on revolving around and around, it moves in circles in your mind. Put it aside -- and not in parts because no one can put it aside in parts. Put it aside completely -- wholesale. Decide that for eight days you will be as ignorant as you were when you were born -- just a child, a new baby who knows nothing, asks nothing, discusses nothing, argues nothing. If you can be a small baby, much is possible. Even that which looks impossible is possible.

If you are ignorant, only then can I work. Only in your ignorance can I transform you. Your knowledge is the barrier. If you feel that your knowledge is so significant and so important that you cannot put it aside, then go away. Do not remain here because then it is futile. I am not going to increase your knowledge. I am not interested at all in what you know, I am interested in YOU -- what you are. And that being that you are can explode only when these barriers of so-called knowledge are thrown.

Be ready for the unknown and you can only be ready if you are ready to be ignorant. And I say that this is very courageous: to feel ignorant is the greatest daring possible to man. Why? -- because knowledge gives you ego, knowledge gives you a feeling that you are somebody, that you know this and that. When you feel that you are ignorant there is no food for your ego to feed upon. If you are ignorant ego disappears.

People come to me and they go on asking how to dissolve the ego, and I say, "Do not try. You cannot dissolve it. Rather, put aside your knowledge and the ego will disappear." It will disappear just like dewdrops disappear from the grass when the sun rises in the morning. The ego is a dewdrop. When you are really not knowing, that is what I mean by ignorance. When you are not knowing and you say, "I do not know anything, I am standing in darkness," where can your ego stand? Where can it have a foothold? With the knowledge disappears the ego. So the first thing: be ignorant.

The second thing: the human mind has been totally perverted by serious people. Those who have taken upon themselves the great work of making men serious have destroyed all that is beautiful in you. Puritans, moralists, religious teachers, churches, they have destroyed all that is beautiful in you because the beauty is related to the nonserious.

Ugliness is related to the serious, and religion has become ugly because it has become too much attached to seriousness. Do not be serious. For these eight days be playful, childlike, nonserious -- enjoying. Enjoy yourself enjoying others, enjoying the whole world around you. The hills are beautiful, and there will be rains and there will be clouds. This night is beautiful, the silence is beautiful. But if you are serious your doors are closed; then you are not open to the silence of the night -- because except for man nothing is serious in existence.

Be playful. It will be difficult, because you are so much structured. You have an armor around you and it is so difficult to loosen it, to relax it. You cannot dance, you cannot sing, you cannot just jump, you cannot just scream and laugh and smile. Even if you want to laugh you first want something there to be laughed at. You cannot simply laugh. There must be some cause: only then can you laugh. There must be some cause: only then can you cry and weep.

You are serious. You look at life as a business or as mathematics. It is not! Life is poetic, illogical. It is not like work, it is like play. Look at the trees, the animals, the birds; look at the sky: the whole existence is playful. You are very serious, so it is no wonder that you have become separate from existence. You are uprooted from it, and then you feel alienated, then you feel like strangers, then you feel that this existence is not your own. No one else is responsible for it except you and your seriousness.

Put aside knowledge, put aside seriousness; be absolutely playful for eight days. You have nothing to lose. If you do not gain anything, you will not lose anything either. What can you lose in being playful? But I say to you: you will never be the same again. If you can really be playful, you will have a new perspective, a new way to look, a new way to be. And when you go back you will not be the same person. The whole of life will change its meaning for you, because the meaning is given by you. Now life looks like a boredom, life looks meaningless. YOU have made it so because of your seriousness. Life is playful, beautiful, but it can be beautiful only if your eyes are open to beauty.

People go on asking, "Where is God?" You cannot find him because he is a player and you are serious. Hindus have been saying for centuries that this existence is God's play, and you are so work-oriented, so serious, that you cannot meet him. Of course! Obviously! There is no possibility of your meeting him. You move in different dimensions. He moves into play. The whole existence is just a play. It is not a work; it is not serious.

Put aside your seriousness, and for eight days become godlike, playful. Again it will be difficult because you feel you are very mature. You are not! You have not gained maturity. Of course you have lost your childhood but just losing childhood is not synonymous with being mature. You can lose childhood without becoming mature. Maturity is not old age, maturity is not concerned with age at all. Maturity is a growth, and the growth must be through childhood, not against it, remember.

Your maturity is false because it has been against the child. The child was born; maturity has been created. The child was natural; you are artificial, cultivated. You will have to go back to the child to regain the source from where growth is possible.

My insistence on being playful is because of this: I want you to go back to the very point from where you stopped growing. There has been a point in your childhood when you stopped growing and when you started being false. You may have been angry, a small child in a tantrum, angry, and your father or your mother said, "Don't be angry! This is not good!" You were natural but a division was created and a choice was there for you. If you were to remain natural then you would not have got the love of your parents.

Of course, you wanted the love; that was the only security for you, you could not have existed without it. So you opted, you surrendered. You pushed your nature aside. You started laughing and smiling; you became a good boy or good girl. The day you became the good boy or a good girl was the day of catastrophe. From that moment you have never been natural. From that moment you have been serious, never playful. From that moment you have been dying, not alive. From that moment you have been aging, not maturing.

In these eight days I want to throw you back to the point where you started being 'good' as against being natural. Be playful so your childhood is regained. It will be difficult because you will have to put aside your masks, your faces; you will have to put aside your personality. But remember, the essence can assert itself only when your personality is not there, because your personality has become an imprisonment. Put it aside. It will be painful, but it is worth it because you are going to be reborn out of it. And no rebirth is possible without pain. If you are really determined to be reborn, then take the risk.

For these eight days be small children again. Do not criticize anybody, do not condemn anybody. That type of nonsense belongs to so-called mature people, not to children. What children do, do. They enjoy. And they enjoy such simple things that for us so-called mature people it looks absurd. The whole world is filled with beauty, truth, love, but you cannot enjoy anything.

When we are meditating from tomorrow morning, enjoy it! Remember this: regain your childhood. Everyone longs for it but no one is doing anything to regain it. Everyone longs for it! People go on saying that childhood is paradise and poets go on writing poems about the beauty of childhood. Who is preventing you from regaining it? I give you this opportunity to regain it.

Poetry will not help, and just remembering that it was paradise is not of much use. Why not move into it again? Why not be a child again? I say to you that if you can be a child again you will start growing in a new way. For the first time you will be really alive again. And the moment you have the eyes of a child, the senses of a child -- young, vibrating with life -- the whole of life vibrates with you.

Remember, it is your vibration that needs transformation. The world is already always vibrating in ecstasy; only you are not tuned. The problem is not with the world, it is with you: you are not tuned to it. The world is dancing, always celebrating, every moment it is in a festivity. The festival goes on from eternity to eternity, only you are not tuned to it. You have fallen apart from it, and you are very serious, very knowing, very mature. You are closed. Throw this enclosure! Move again into the current of life.

When the storm comes, the trees will be dancing, you also dance. When the night comes and everything is dark, you also be dark. And in the morning when the sun rises, let it rise in you also. Be childlike and enjoying, not thinking of the past. A child never thinks of the past. Really, he has no past to think about. A child is not worried about the future; he has no time consciousness. He lives totally unworried. He moves in the moment; he never carries any hangover. If he is angry then he is angry and in his anger he will say to his mother, "I hate you." And this is not just words, this is a reality. Really, in that moment he is in total hate.

The next moment he will come out of it and he will be laughing and he will give a kiss to his mother and he will say, "I love you." There is no contradiction. These are two different moments. He was total hate and now he is total love. He moves just like a river goes on moving, zigzag. But wherever he is -- wherever the river is -- he is total, flowing.

For these eight days be like children -- total. If you hate, hate; if you love, love; if you are angry, then BE angry; and if you are festive, then be festive and dance. Do not carry anything over from the past. Remain true to the moment; do not hanker for the future. For these eight days drop out of time. Drop out of time! That is why I say do not be serious: because the more serious you are, the more time conscious you are. A child lives in eternity; there is no time for him. He is not even aware of it. These eight days will be real meditation if you drop out of time. Live the moment and be true to it.

Put aside knowledge, put aside seriousness, and thirdly, put aside the division of mind and body. Divided, you cannot meet the one God. Divided you cannot come to the nondual reality. If you are dual, the reality will be dual. You have to be one; only then does the reality begin to be one. It is you who ultimately decide what reality is. If you are mad, the whole existence is mad. If you are silent, then the whole existence is silent. If you are in love, you will feel that the whole existence is loving.

It is you who decide the quality of the existence around you -- and you are divided. You think your body and your mind are two things; not only two, but contrary, opposed, fighting -- enemies. No, they are not. They are two extremes of one rhythm; they are two poles of one existence. The outer is the body, the inner is the soul, but between the outer and the inner you exist. You are neither the inner nor the outer. The outer is a part of you and the inner is also a part of you. You exist in between.

Become a unity. At least for eight days do not divide yourself. Become one. If you can become one, a tremendous energy will be released. And only that en-ergy can lead you into meditation; otherwise there is no way.

Go into a church: they talk and they talk and they talk; they preach. Go to a religious meeting: words, word, words -- as if God is only a cerebral question that has to be solved through mind.

No, this will not be of much help. Mentation alone won't do: the body has to be brought in. That is why, in my meditation techniques, I do not take you as divided: you are one. If your mind is feeling angry, allow your body to be angry. If your mind is feeling happy, allow your body to dance. Do not create a division. Let yourself come deep down into the body, and allow the body to flow to your innermost core. Become a flow!

You are frozen. I would like to melt you and create a flow again. That is why I insist on active meditation. By 'active' I only mean that your body must be involved in it. If you simply sit in a buddha posture, you can go on thinking and thinking and thinking; the body is not involved in it. And the body is the world. Through the body you are related to the existence, through body you exist. Your meditation must in some way be deeply rooted in the body; otherwise it will become just a dream floating in the mind, just like clouds without any roots in the earth. I want to push you back to the earth.

For these eight days do not create any division. Be both body and soul simultaneously. The feeling, just the feeling that you are one, will dissolve your many anguishes, your many tensions, which you have created by an artificial division. The whole society, modern society, is paranoid because of this division, schizophrenic because of this division, this split. Standing against yourself, fighting with yourself -- it is nonsense, but everyone is doing it.

In this camp be one with your body, have a nondual flow. Be alive in the body. And in the meditations use your body as much as possible. Only then will you have a real depth in meditation. So do not create division. These three things you have to remember.

And now, a few more points and then I will take the sutra -- a few more points for these eight days. One, give more and more emphasis to exhalation. Really, do not inhale, only exhale. Do not be disturbed when I say do not inhale. I mean allow the body to inhale. You exhale and allow the body to inhale; you do not inhale. Whenever you remember, exhale deeply and then relax and leave the body to inhale.

This will give you very deep relaxation -- because exhalation is death and inhalation is life. The first thing a child has to do is inhale and the last thing an old man has to do is exhale. Death begins with exhalation, life begins with inhalation. And remember that death is total relaxation. Life is tension, death is relaxation.

Meditation is more like death than like life, but death is not against life. Death is the very source of all life. Life comes out of death and moves again into death. Death is like the ocean and life is like a river: it comes and falls into the ocean. And then again clouds arise and again it rains and again a river is created, and it moves again to the ocean.

Death is like the ocean, life is like a river. Death is total relaxation. That is why we are unconsciously afraid of exhalation. We inhale but we never exhale. Only the body exhales as a necessity. Change this completely. For these eight days, exhale and allow the body to inhale. That will relax you -- your body, your mind, your whole nervous system. And when I say exhale deeply, I do not mean for you to create any strain. Do not create any strain! Simply exhale deeply and enjoy it, as if you are dying in it. The life is moving into the ocean of death. Relax and surrender, and exhale deeply and enjoy it.

And then wait. I do not say to prevent it -- no! Simply wait. Do not do anything for inhalation, neither for nor against. The body will take the inhalation by itself. And if you have deeply exhaled, a deep inhalation will occur. But your emphasis should be on exhalation -- the first thing.

Secondly: thrice a day we will be meeting here, but there will be time in between. What are you going to do in that time? Remember one thing: do not do all that you have always been doing. Do not continue it -- the same talk in the same way: do not continue it, put it aside. Be new, be original. Do not do whatsoever you have been doing. Change it, because it has become a habit pattern. If you continue that pattern new things cannot evolve. Put it aside, throw it away.

For these eight days do not move in your old habit patterns. Do not say things which you have been saying always. The moment you remember, stop! You know you have said this so many times; you have been saying this to your wife for years, and you know what she will answer. Everything has become a routine, a mechanical repetition.

Do not say it. Say something new. Or if you cannot find, if it is very difficult to find something new, remain silent: that will be something new. Or, and this will look foolish but I want you to be foolish for these eight days -- do not use words, use gestures. If you want to say something to your friend or to your partner in the room or to your wife or anyone, use gestures; do not use language. Just be as if deaf and dumb: use gestures, say something through gestures. Or, if you cannot express through gestures, then use sounds -- but do not use words. A deep exultation will happen to you; a deep benediction will come to you.

Use sounds or gestures. Do not use words, because words are the mind. Use sounds like birds and animals do, or gestures. You will have a new feeling in yourself, you will feel a new being within yourself, because the old pattern of personality will not be functioning. You can do this alone also and it will be worth it. Anytime during the day, sit alone: go near a tree, sit alone near it and start making sounds. Do not use words -- just as small babies do, go on uttering any sound, repeating and enjoying it. It is baby talk without any lingual meaning. Just utter any sounds and enjoy the very utterance.

What I mean is: do not be a victim of the usual pattern here. Do not be concerned with anyone else. You are always concerned. Be concerned with yourself. Be totally selfish; be concerned with your own self. Enjoy your being, enjoy the surroundings, meditate with the group and alone, and be totally centered in yourself. Do not think about what others are doing. Do not think about it! Allow others to do whatsoever they want to do. Do not interfere with anyone. Even the idea of allowing others to do whatsoever they want to do will free you because you are unnecessarily burdened by others. Be totally selfish.

It does not look very religious when I say be totally selfish. To me it is the only religion because only when you are REALLY selfish can you do something for others. Unless you have something, how can you do? How can you help? How can you love? How can there be compassion? Within you are nothing and you go on serving others and thinking about others. That is only an escape to forget yourself. In this meditation camp do not do that. Remember yourself and forget others.

And the last thing: in the meditations, do not do them partially, do not do them half-heartedly. Nothing will come out of it. Meditation is not mathematical. Do not think, "If I do fifty percent, then at least fifty percent will be the outcome." No, zero will be the outcome. Only a one-hundred-percent effort can bring you any results; less will not do.

It is just like heating water. At a particular degree, a hundred degrees, it evaporates. Do not think that at fifty degrees half will evaporate. It will not evaporate at all; it will just become lukewarm. I do not want you to become lukewarm here. Be either hot or cold. If you are cold then leave! No need to make any effort unnecessarily. Why tire yourself? If you are a hundred percent hot, then be here and you will evaporate. I guarantee that; that is absolutely certain.

If you make a one-hundred-percent effort, if you do not withhold yourself, if you melt in the process completely and forget yourself, if you abandon yourself completely in it, the thing for which you have been hankering for lives together can happen. It can happen in a single moment -- only a totality of abandonment is needed.

We will be doing three meditations a day in a group. That too is for a spec-ific reason: because you are individuals only on the top. Deep down you are not individuals. We belong to each other; we are rooted in one consciousness. So a group meditation can be a tremendous experience. You are not alone there. If you can abandon yourself, if you can surrender, if you can melt completely, then the group soul takes you over, you are not there. Then the group dances and you dance as part of it. Then the group feels blissful and you feel blissful as part of it. Then the group moves, sways, dances, and you are part of it. Abandon yourself totally, and then the group takes you over. It becomes a fast, strong current and you are simply taken over.

These three group meditations are not individual meditations. You start as an individual, but sooner or later you are not there and the group soul has started functioning. And when the group soul starts functioning, you have entered the divine. So do not remain individuals, that is false, egoistic. Melt down, and things will start happening to you.

Many things are possible, and I hope they will happen to you. If you are really ready, if you have been dreaming about them, hoping about them -- if you have come here not as a casual visitor but as a seeker, to stake something, to accept the challenge and to move into the greatest adventure that is possible to human consciousness -- then everything can happen to you.

Now I will take the sutra:

AUM, MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT US BOTH. MAY HE NOURISH US BOTH. MAY WE BOTH ACHIEVE ENERGY. MAY THIS STUDY MAKE US BOTH ILLUMINED. MAY WE NEVER HATE EACH OTHER. AUM, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE.

It is beautiful. The teacher and the taught both are praying to the ultimate -- the disciple and master both are praying to the ultimate.

AUM, MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT US BOTH.

Because as a master or as a disciple, you are not real. The master is a division, the disciple is a division. The master is a fragment and the disciple is also a fragment. Both are praying that the ultimate should take care, should take control. The master will lose himself as the master and the disciple will lose himself as the disciple. They will become one; they will melt down into a deeper reality.

MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT US BOTH.

Now forget the Upanishad. We are here and let this prayer be yours:

MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT US BOTH.

I should not function here as an individual, you should not function here as an individual. Rather, we should become one. I am ready. If you are also ready to meet me there is no difficulty. And then it is not that I am leading you toward something, not that you are led by me but we are both moving toward something -- together. I am not the leader and you are not the led. I am not the teacher and you are not the taught. We both are moving toward the deeper reality together. No one is the teacher and no one is the taught. This is the feeling of the prayer.

MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT US BOTH. MAY HE NOURISH US BOTH. MAY WE BOTH ACHIEVE ENERGY. MAY THIS STUDY MAKE US BOTH ILLUMINED. MAY WE NEVER HATE EACH OTHER. AUM, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE.

There is every possibility that the disciple may start hating the master because if you love, the possibility of hate is always there. If you love the master, then the other part of that love is hate. And when you love, the hate can erupt at any moment. Hate is part of it. Really, hate and love are not two things but two aspects. Hate is not against love; it is the counterpart of it -- the other aspect of the coin. So when a disciple loves the master, every moment the possibility is there that he may hate. And the possibility will grow more when the master tries to transform him -- because then he seems dangerous, then he seems destructive.

If I say, "Throw your knowledge," you will feel that I am like an enemy, because your knowledge is your treasure. If I say, "Do not be serious; be like children," your ego will feel hurt. You will feel, "This man is leading me towards something which will be stupid, foolish." You can start hating me at any moment. If I am REALLY bent upon transforming you, mutating you, then the possibility is always more and more that you will start hating me.

That is why the master says:

MAY THIS STUDY MAKE US BOTH ILLUMINED. MAY WE NEVER HATE EACH OTHER.

And this sentence is really something -- something exceptional, extraordinary: MAY THIS STUDY MAKE US BOTH ILLUMINED. The master is already illumined; otherwise he is not the master. The disciple is not illumined; otherwise there is no need to be a disciple. But the master says, MAY THIS STUDY illumine us both -- MAKE US BOTH ILLUMINED. This is really subtle. The master is awakened, but this awakening is his own experience, not the disciple's. The disciple only believes that the master is awakened; he cannot know it. And when the master and disciple move as a couple, as a pair, not different and separate but together, then the disciple will come to know, when the awakening comes, that both have become awakened, both have become buddhas.

This is one meaning; another meaning is also there. You can be illumined alone; that is one experience. But when you move with someone else and the illumination happens to both, it is something else again; it is not the same.

Buddha is illumined, enlightened, under the bodhi tree. This is individual illumination; he has come to an individual awakening. But the whole world around him, millions and millions of souls around him, are walking in sleep. Buddha moves among these sleepwalkers and tries to awaken them. When-ever someone is awakened, Buddha's own illumination is increased.

Remember, whereas before one lamp was burning in the darkness, now two lamps are there. And then a third one becomes awakened and three lamps are burning, and a fourth one is awakened and the light goes on growing. The light goes on growing until Buddha is no longer an individual.

So whenever and wherever enlightenment happens, it is his enlightenment also. This is deep and subtle but worth remembering always, that a buddha's enlightenment also goes on growing. Whenever a disciple awakens, Buddha's light grows.

Buddha is already awakened; there is no problem about it. It is just like when I burn a lamp in a room and the room is lighted: there is no darkness. Then I bring another lamp, and the light increases. Then I bring a third lamp, and the light increases more. The whole world goes on becoming filled with more and more light whenever a master is capable of helping a disciple to be enlightened.

This seer says a wonderful thing. No one has said it anywhere:

MAY THIS STUDY MAKE US BOTH ILLUMINED....

AUM, MAY MY LIMBS BECOME STRONG. ALSO, LET MY SPEECH, PRANA -- VITAL AIR -- SIGHT, HEARING, AND ALL THE SENSE ORGANS BE VIGOROUS.

That is what I am saying to you. Allow your body to be relived by you. Do not separate it; be joined together with it; move into it deeply. When you move deeply into it, everything becomes strong, alive, new.

ALSO LET MY SPEECH, PRANA, SIGHT, HEARING, AND ALL THE SENSE ORGANS BE VIGOROUS. THE ENTIRE EXISTENCE IS THE BRAHMAN OF THE UPANISHADS. MAY I NEVER DENY BRAHMAN.

This is one of the most revolutionary things ever uttered.

MAY I NEVER DENY BRAHMAN; MAY BRAHMAN NOT DENY ME. LET THERE BE NO DENIAL AT ALL. LET THERE BE NO DENIAL AT LEAST ON MY PART.

Do not deny, because everything is Brahman, everything is that absolute. So whenever you deny, you deny him. Whenever you condemn -- and you may condemn whomsoever you like -- whatsoever you condemn, you condemn him. If you condemn a thief, if you condemn a murderer, he is condemned because only he is there. That is why this is one of the most revolutionary sayings.

THE ENTIRE EXISTENCE IS THE BRAHMAN.... MAY I NEVER DENY BRAHMAN in any way -- conscious or unconscious, open or hidden. MAY I NEVER DENY BRAHMAN. LET THERE BE NO DENIAL AT ALL.

The negative mind, the denying mind, is the irreligious mind. The mind which goes on saying no, which does not have the capacity and courage to say yes, is the irreligious mind. The religious mind is a yea-saying mind. Even if there is something which looks wrong to you and your whole mind feels like condemning it, a religious mind will say, "It appears to me that way, but who knows? It is my judgment that it is wrong, but it may not be so -- because what is the value of my judgment?"

Some people brought a woman to Jesus and they said, "She has committed adultery, so she has to be killed. And this has been the law -- to kill her with stones, by throwing stones at her."

Jesus said, "The law is true, but only those persons can throw stones at her who have not committed adultery ever -- not even in the mind. So come forward only those persons who have not committed adultery, actually or in imagination."

The crowd had stones; they were standing ready to kill her. But now people started dispersing because there was no one who had not committed adultery in the mind.

Finally, Jesus and the woman were left. The crowd had dispersed. The woman said, "I have done wrong! I am guilty, punish me."

But Jesus said, "Who am I to punish you? Who am I to punish you or condemn you? It is between you and your God."

This is the attitude of the religious man: no condemnation. Who are you to condemn? -- you who are self-appointed, unnecessarily creating problems for yourself and others! And do not deny. Denial goes deep: you deny your body, you deny your senses, you deny everything. You have become a great denier. And then, when you become suffocated, you cry and you say, "Why this anguish? Why this misery?" This misery is created by you. A person who goes on denying everything will become more and more shrunken, frozen inside. He cannot do anything: everything is wrong. He cannot eat this, he cannot love in this way, he cannot move in this way, he cannot do this or that. Only cannots and cannots all around him -- denials and denials. Then life becomes suffocated. Then you feel miserable.

This is one of the most revolutionary sayings ever uttered -- that there should be no denial at all: "Let there be no denial at least on my part." This goes even deeper. Look at the beauty of it. There is every possibility that if I say to you, "Do not deny," and someone denies, you will deny him. Why are YOU denying? If I say, "Do not condemn" and someone condemns, you will condemn him. The mind goes on playing tricks. In new shapes it brings back all the old diseases again and again.

I was talking to a woman who has a great condemning mind. She goes on condemning everyone. Whenever she comes to me she goes on condemning this and that. Then I told her, "This is not good. I do not say that whatsoever you say is not true. It may be; that is not the point. Your condemning is wrong."

So she said, "If you say that, then I will not condemn anybody."

The next day she came again and she said, "Another of your disciples is condemning. He is not good." Now the definition has changed of what is good and what is bad but the condemnation continues. Now HE is not good.

The rishi says:

LET THERE BE NO DENIAL AT ALL. LET THERE BE NO DENIAL AT LEAST ON MY PART. WHATEVER VIRTUES ARE IN THE UPANISHADS, MAY THEY ABIDE IN I WHO AM DEVOTED TO THE ATMAN. MAY THEY ABIDE IN ME. AUM, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE.

The master is really the home, the abode, of all the virtues. Whatsoever the Upanishads teach, whatsoever virtues are there, they are nothing compared to the heart of a master. The deepest virtue is in his humility, humbleness. He still goes on praying that all the virtues which the Upanishads sing about "should abide in me, they should not leave me, they should remain in my heart."

An authentic humbleness goes on praying: that is the point. It is never non-prayerful. Even when everything has been achieved the prayer continues -- because prayer is humbleness, because prayer is simplicity, because prayer is innocence. Even if the ultimate is achieved, the prayer goes on continuing.

I have heard about one Sufi mystic, Bayazid. He became enlightened, but still he was praying one day, just as ever. So one of his disciples became disturbed and he said, "Master, you need not pray. You are already enlightened. Why are you praying?"

Bayazid is reported to have said, "Before I prayed for enlightenment, now also I pray for enlightenment."

The disciple couldn't understand and said, "What do you mean?"

The master said, "I prayed so that enlightenment may happen to me. Now it has happened, and I pray in thankfulness, in gratitude that it has happened." But prayer continues -- the same prayer.

Prayer is an attitude. The master is the abode of all virtues. Of course, the Upanishads are created by the masters, not vice versa. No Upanishad can create a master, and a single master can create all the Upanishads. But the master says: