Yoga The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 5 Discourses on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Chapter #8, Male mind, female mind, no-mind Question 2

Question 2

DURING DARSHAN OR YOUR LECTURES I SOMETIMES GET OVERWHELMED BY THE PHENOMENON THAT IS YOU. AND THEN I THINK THAT IT MUST HAVE BEEN LIKE THAT WHEN I SAT AT THE FEET OF BUDDHA, CHRIST, AND OTHER MASTERS -- AND FAILED. WILL YOU PLEASE PROMISE ME NOT TO LEAVE ANY STONE UNTURNED TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU WILL BE MY LAST MASTER?

That depends on you. I will not leave any stone unturned, but that is not going tb help very much -- Buddha also didn't leave any stone unturned, neither Jesus. No Master ever leaves any stone unturned, but no Master can confer enlightenment on you. Unless you understand, nothing can be done.

Sometimes, the very effort of the Master may even create a resistance in you. I feel that many times. If I am after you too much you start escaping from me. If I am trying too hard to do something you become afraid. I have to give you doses according to your capacity to digest.

It depends on you. If you want, everything is possible; but deep down you don't want it. That is the problem you cling to it. You say that you would like to be enlightened, you say that you are finished with this whole rotten life and you would like to transcend it -- but are you really finished with it? Have you really closed your accounts with it? Is not there somewhere deep inside you a desire lurking still, a hope alive still, a seed which can sprout any moment in another life? If you watch you will understand that there is a desire, a hope, that you may not have known the whole of life, that maybe there is something you have been missing, that maybe there was some bliss and you didn't knock at the right door. That continues.

You come to me, but you come halfheartedly. That is not a coming; that is not a coming at all. You only appear to come to me, but you never come. I promise you I will not leave any stone unturned, but are you here? Are you close to me, near? You are very cunning and clever; even when you are close you go on protecting yourself in a thousand and one ways.

For example, even your questions, your attitudes, are protective. And you don't know what they are protecting. I know one of you, a very miserly woman -- she is here to get enlightenment. But since she has been here she has been asking questions: why the ashram has such a costly car, why I wear a costly watch. What has she to do with the car or the watch? Why are only these questions arising in her mind? Her own miserliness -- protecting. I know she is an adamant miser, and unless her miserliness is broken she cannot grow.

That is for me to decide, what car to have or not have. And I have my own reasons, and you cannot understand my reasons. I never use it, but I have it. It is just sitting there. But it did a miracle; it changed many things. I was surrounded by a few misers, marvadis, and they wouldn't leave me. I purchased this car -- they all left. They simply left; they never came again. There were only two possibilities: either they had to leave their miserliness, then they could have been here; or they had to leave me. And since they have gone the ashram has a different quality to it. They were dirty people, but I cannot tell somebody to leave. I have to create a device. That car has done more than its cost, but you don't know. But you need not be concerned about these things at all.

Gurdjieff used to say, whenever somebody would come he would say, "Give all your money to me." Many people simply left him because of this; because they had come to a spiritual Master and he is after their money. But those who remained, they were transformed. Not that Gurdjieff was interested in their money -- he was interested in breaking their miserliness, because if you are miserly you cannot expand. The whole consciousness of a miser shrinks. Miserliness is a constipation of being: you cannot expand, you cannot share. you cannot flow. Miserliness is a neurosis; everything is blocked. And money is the God. To give you a real God your false God has to be broken. The first thing Gurdjieff will ask will be about money.

Even to ask him a question was not so easy as it is for you to ask me. He used to ask one hundred dollars for one question, that means one thousand rupees for one question. And maybe he will say "yes" or "no" -- "Now if you have another question, give one thousand rupees again." When he wrote his first book ALL AND EVERYTHING he would not publish it. Disciples were after him: "Publish it; this is a great work." He said, "Wait." He will allow a person to look into the manuscript and he will take one thousand dollars -- just to look into the manuscript.

What was he doing? And he was not at all interested in money: with one hand he will take, with another hand he will give. He died a poor man; and he must have accumulated millions of dollars if he was interested in money, but he had nothing -- when he died not even a single dollar was found. Where did the money disappear to? He was taking from somebody, giving it to somebody else.... He was just an in-between passage for money to flow.

People will leave him immediately the moment they will see that he is asking for the money. And he was not like me: he will ask for the whole money -- "Whatsoever you have, you give. Surrender." But those who surrendered, they were blessed; they totally were transformed. That became the beginning. That was the breaking point from where everything became different. For a person who was too attached to money, it was a great thing to give all.

It happened once: A woman, a great musician, came to him, and he asked for all the ornaments that she had. She was really in deep trust with him; she immediately gave all the ornaments. By the evening, those ornaments were returned to her. But not only did she find those ornaments there, a few more were added by Gurdjieff in the bag -- more valuable than her own ornaments. She couldn't understand what was happening.

Then just fifteen days afterwards another woman came, a very rich woman, and Gurdjieff asked for whatsoever she had -- all ornaments and money and everything -- to be put in a bag and given to him; only then he starts the work. The woman was afraid. She said, "I will think and tomorrow I will reply." Then she heard about this musician woman. She went to her and asked, "What has happened?" She told the whole story. Then she was very happy. She said, "Then It is good, a good business -- a bargain: you give a few ornaments and they are almost doubled." Immediately, in the night -- she could not wait for the next day -- immediately, she put all the ornaments in it, in the bag, gave it to Gurdjieff.... It was never returned. The woman waited and waited but it was never returned.

You cannot understand, on the surface, what is happening. The woman who surrendered was not attached to the money; there was no point in taking it. Gurdjieff returned it with more ornaments added. The other woman gave the money as a bargain. She was obsessed with the money; the money cannot be returned. But even the other woman changed, understanding the whole phenomenon of why they were not returned.

Don't bother. What I do and what I do not do -- that is not your concern, not your worry. You are enough in your own worries; you have too much of your own problems. Don't bother about me. I have my own ways. And don't try to advise me -- just forget about it. Just think about your own self, why you are here. And you can miss for small things because those things will close your eyes. "Why this?" and "Why that?" -- that is not for you to think about.

I know what is going on, and every step that I take is very, very consideredly taken. And in my life I have never repented for anything that I have done: it was the thing to do.

But the woman who goes on asking about the car, about the house, this and that -- and she is a rich woman, in fact, very rich -- she is afraid about her own money: she is protecting her own miserliness. And she is thinking she is asking very relevant questions. But if she remains here I am going to break the ice. The only point is if she has the courage to be here for a few days. And her miserliness has to be broken, because without it being broken she will never grow. If she is really afraid, she should escape -- she should escape as immediately as possible -- because soon there will be no possibility to escape.

Ask questions which are concerned with your growth -- your questions, which are deeply within your being and need to be answered.

Chapter-8

THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI

Male mind, female mind, no-mind

Second Question