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I CELEBRATE MYSELF: GOD IS NOW WHERE, LIFE IS NOW HERE
Chapter 3: The paradise of yourself
Question 3
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen I Celebrate Myself
Question 3
Maneesha's question:
OUR BELOVED MASTER
IN HIS BOOK, PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, ALDOUS HUXLEY WRITES: "RELIGIONS THAT MAKE NO APPEAL TO EMOTIONS HAVE VERY FEW ADHERENTS."
LOOKING AT HOW MANY CHRISTIANS THERE ARE IN THE WORLD AS COMPARED WITH THOSE DRAWN TO ZEN, IT WOULD SEEM TRUE.
ARE PEOPLE ATTACHED TO THE IDEA OF A GOD BECAUSE IT EXCITES THE EMOTIONS? THAT MAY INCLUDE FEAR AS WELL AS LOVE, BUT AT LEAST ONE FEELS SOMETHING, AND IS FOR THE TIME BEING TAKEN OUT OF ONESELF.
No. Maneesha, Aldous Huxley is a great thinker, but he is not an awakened buddha. What he is saying is logically true, but not existentially true.
Religions that make no appeal to emotions have very few adherents, but those are the only religions there are. The religions that attract people and appeal to their emotions are not religions but mock religions, pseudo-religions, fake.
Authentic religion goes beyond emotions, feelings, sentiments, thoughts -- that is your whole mind. But inauthentic religions which are more interested in exploiting people than freeing them, making them slaves rather than awakened, are bound to appeal to your emotions. Obviously, these religions have many more followers than Zen. But these religions are not religions, that's why so many people are attracted towards them.
When the masses are attracted to anything you can be certain something is wrong, because the masses consist of the retarded people; their mental age is not more than ten. So there are traps for them. There are religions which conceive of God as a female, a beautiful woman. Suddenly you start feeling emotions arising -- God must be the most beautiful woman in the whole existence; you become possessed with romance.
That's where Sufis get stuck -- they conceive of God as a beautiful woman. They are the lovers, and God is the beloved; they are male, and God is female. Now, they are simply transferring all their biology, moving it from ordinary women made of bones and flesh and blood and mucus ... and perhaps false teeth, and false hair, and rubber breasts ...!
The scriptures don't talk about rubber breasts, false teeth, plastic surgery, false hair, but when the scriptures were written these things were not available. So they have talked only about the bones, and the flesh, and the blood, and the mucus. God must be a golden woman -- no perspiration, no need for deodorants. God must be eternally young.
This is transferring your biology to a fake idea, a fiction. But this is not religion. This is driving you mad, because if you want to love you have to understand that the real women exist here, not in heaven. And what is the problem?
I have always wondered ... The people who have written scriptures -- and I have listened to great saints in this country -- continuously talk about women as flesh, and bones, and blood, and nothing else. And I always wondered what they think about their own bodies? Are they made of gold? Or platinum? Not a single scripture talks about a man's body, only a woman's body.
My understanding is that these people are still deep down hankering for women. To repress that hankering they go on condemning the woman. They are not condemning for you, they are condemning for themselves so that they can repress the desire for a woman.
Now this is a transfer -- that God becomes a woman. I will give you another case which will be more simple ....
Meera, one of the most famous Indian women saints, thinks of God as a man, a young man, Krishna. She is the beloved and he is the lover. She sleeps with a statue of Krishna in her bed.
She got married -- she belonged to a royal family so she got married to the prince of another royal family of Rajasthan. But the prince was utterly disgusted because she told him on the first night, "My husband is Krishna. Don't touch my body, it will be sacrilegious. Only Krishna can make love to me, not you."
Certainly the prince was absolutely angry, and never went again into the room where Meera used to live, sing songs and dance in front of Krishna. Her whole idea about Krishna was that he was a real man in the sky, and it was only a question of a few years before she would meet him. But preparation was needed -- she had to make a heart-to-heart contact.
It is all repressed sexuality ....
The more she avoided a man, the more her love for Krishna grew, because sexual energy needs some expression in some way.
She left the palace, started dancing in the streets and singing songs of Krishna. You have to just look into the songs and you will see how sex is dominant, predominant: "When you come I will be waiting for you in my bed. When are you coming? The night is beautiful, the night flowers have blossomed, all lovers have reached to their beloveds, and I am waiting alone -- when are you coming?"
These are subtle expressions of sexuality, sensuality. Her songs are very sensual. She had poured all her sensuality and all her sexuality into her songs, and Krishna became her hallucination. She dreamt of Krishna, she sang of Krishna, she danced with Krishna -- she kept Krishna close to her heart.
She was worshipped by people as a great saint, but those who understand a little bit of psychology would have suggested, "You need psychiatric treatment, you are simply sick."
These people have attracted many people, obviously. You already have your sexuality ... just a little turn .... You already have your emotions and feelings ... just a little turn .... It is all a mind game.
So Catholics can number six hundred million people, but Zen is only for the chosen few, the very elite. Its appeal is not for the masses; its appeal is only for the very intelligent who can look beyond the mind where there is no feeling, no thought, no sentiment. You have simply gone beyond your body chemistry, biology, physiology. You have entered into a space which can only be called no-mind.
So, Maneesha, it is true that the religions that make no appeal to the emotions, have very few adherents, but they are the only religions worth calling religions. And the religions which attract millions of people ... you can see it -- the lower and more pseudo the religion, the more people will be attracted to it. Now, what has the Catholic religion in it except fictions? Just take out those fictions and nothing remains. There is nothing essential.
Biblical scholars are continuously pointing out that the miracles told about Jesus are not true. They never happened because no contemporary source even reports them. And the miracles were such that they could not have gone unreported. It is a very simple thing. A man just puts his hands on a blind man's eyes and he starts seeing; a man turns water into wine; a man makes dead people come back to life again ... do you think such a man will go unreported? And he was not a Christian, so you cannot say that because he was Christian, Jews have not reported him. He was born a Jew, he lived a Jew, he died a Jew. Jesus never knew that he was a Christian.
Christianity was born three hundred years after Jesus' death. He never knew that people would know him as Christ. Christ is the Greek word for messiah; Messiah is the Hebrew word.
Christianity seems to be the lowest religion, hence it attracts the greatest mass. As religions go higher, less and less people are attracted, because less and less people can understand it.
Intelligence is not widespread. How many people can understand the theory of relativity by Albert Einstein? When he was alive it was a well-known fact that there were only twelve people around the world who could understand what he meant by relativity.
Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest philosophers of this century, wrote a book on Albert Einstein. He called it THE ABC OF RELATIVITY. And when he met Albert Einstein, Einstein asked, "Why have you written the ABC, why not the whole thing?"
Russell said, "I only understand the very beginning. I can't claim that I understand the whole implications of your theory. I have written the ABC because that's what I understand. Some day somebody will write the XYZ ... perhaps you can write it."
Twelve persons only around the world -- does that make the theory of relativity wrong? And six hundred million Catholics "know" that Jesus is born of a virgin woman -- only stupid people can believe that. That Jesus walks on water -- only stupid people can believe that. All these fictions have been created to attract the masses.
I have heard about one archbishop of England who was visiting Jerusalem. And he had two old friends, both of whom were very learned rabbis. So he informed them, "I am coming and I want to see every place where Jesus has been."
Obviously he was interested to see the sea of Galilee where Jesus used to walk on water. The two rabbis took him in a boat to the place where he used to walk. The archbishop asked, "Can you also walk ... because you are great rabbis?"
They said, "Of course."
He could not believe it. He said, "Then just give me a little example, just a few steps."
So one rabbi got down from the right side and went walking on water -- the archbishop could not believe it -- and he came back.
Those two old rabbis said to him, "Can you do it? We don't believe in Christ; you believe in Christ. If your faith is enough you can walk."
Now it was a question of faith. Faith was at stake. The archbishop was hesitating and trembling inside. But in front of these two rabbis, to be defeated would not be right. So he said, "Okay, I can. I have faith. If you people who don't believe in Jesus Christ can walk, why cannot I?"
And he went from the left side of the boat and immediately started drowning and shouting, "Save me! Help!"
So the two rabbis pulled him back. They said, "What happened?"
He said, "I don't know, but I have faith."
"Your faith does not seem to be worth much," those two rabbis said.
Finally, the rabbi who had gone out said to the other rabbi, "Should we tell the boy the right thing?"
The archbishop heard their whispering. He said, "What are you whispering?"
They said, "The truth is, you got out from the wrong side. On this side, the right side, there are stones just below the water. The water is just covering them by one inch, not more than that. Jesus used to walk here, and every Jew can walk who knows these rocks. It is not faith, it is rocks!"
Just take away all the miracles -- and what remains of Jesus? Take away the virgin birth -- what remains of Jesus? Take away his claim which is absolutely pathological: "I am the only begotten son of God" -- what remains of Jesus? Just an ordinary carpenter's son riding on a donkey -- a laughingstock!
So the Vatican has just now informed all the churches not to pay any attention to biblical scholars. Because if you pay attention to them they will destroy your whole religion. This is their whole religion.
But Gautam Buddha has not done any miracles, so you cannot destroy Gautam Buddha so easily. He is not born out of a virgin, and he is not the only begotten son of God. Any non-essential is not there so you cannot take away anything. But certainly he becomes more difficult for the masses to understand.
His approach can be understood by the very intelligent people. So even in India ... he was born in India, but his religion disappeared from India. These masses of India could not follow him. He did not give them what Maneesha calls "something." He gave them nothing, because nothing is the pure space.
Something is bound to be something in the mind.
Nothing is the beyond-mind.
Gautam Buddha disappeared after his death very quickly. For two thousand five hundred years there has not been a single Buddhist in India. Even in the temple which the king Ashoka built as a memorial at the side of the bodhi tree where Gautam Buddha became enlightened, the priest is a brahmin. There was no Buddhist even to be at the memorial to take care of the temple.
That brahmin does not believe in Buddha. He was paid and he is still being paid by Buddhists from outside India. He does not believe in Buddha, but he takes care. His family has been taking care of the temple for hundreds of years, generation after generation -- just a caretaker. He does not believe in Buddha, he does not think that he is the right person to belong to.
But Buddhism spread in China and Japan, in Tibet and Ceylon, in Korea and Taiwan -- it reached faraway places. In Mongolia, in Afghanistan, in a few states which now belong to the Soviet Union, Buddhist statues and temples have been discovered.
Its spread is wide, but the reason for its spread is that the Buddhists who went to these places started compromising. Buddha was a non-compromising man. No man of truth can be compromising -- it does not matter. What matters is truth in its purity. But how many people are able to rise to that height, to that consciousness, to understand? Surely very few people.
So all the Buddhists around the whole continent of Asia are not true Buddhists, they have compromised with their local religion, they are mixed. If Buddha comes back he will simply deny all these Buddhists because they are doing something which he was against, absolutely against. And they are all doing all those things just as a compromise.
Only Zen has not compromised -- that's why my respect for Zen. It has remained a very small thin stream of masters. It never became a mass religion -- it cannot. The day it becomes a mass religion it will not be a religion anymore. My love for it, my respect for it is because it is absolutely non-compromising, it is not interested in gathering crowds. It is interested only in the highest evolved human beings. That is my interest also. That's why you cannot see masses coming to me.
The day masses start coming to me I will not come. I hate the unconscious masses. They have been the cause of killing people like Socrates, killing people like al-Hillaj Mansoor, killing people like Jesus. There is every possibility that Gautam Buddha also was killed by being given poison. They have tried to kill Mahavira -- many attempts.
The masses are against the truth because truth is going to shatter all their lies. What Maneesha is calling "something" -- that something is a lie, a consolation.
No man who loves the truth is going to console you.
He is going to destroy all your consolations. He is there to take away all your lies so you can rise to the ultimate peak of consciousness. But that peak comes to you when you are no more.
When there is nothing inside you, then the whole existence simply starts showering on you flowers of peace, love, silence, ecstasy, a divine drunkenness.
Aldous Huxley is not right because he does not understand the difference between an authentic religion and a fake religion. He is a man of rational and logical understanding, but not a man who can be called meditative. It is because of this he started taking LSD. He wrote a book called HEAVEN AND HELL in which he preaches that LSD gives you real samadhi, real enlightenment.
A chemical can give you enlightenment ...? And after six hours, eight hours, twenty-four hours, enlightenment disappears and you are again your old fucking self!
This is the right time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh. Put on the lights!
One night, the German Zen master, Stonehead Niskriya, decides that he wants to get a date ....
It is very difficult for Zen masters to get a date. He used to have a girlfriend ... When I was telling you that I cannot see this way ...
(WITH CROSSED ARMS RAISED HIGH, THE MASTER INDICATES TO BOTH SIDES OF THE AUDITORIUM, SIMULTANEOUSLY.) ... that girlfriend used to see this way! She always missed the Zen master Niskriya, so she never knew who he is. But even she escaped. So he went to Germany -- you can see, here he could not find a single girl ...! So he went to Germany and picked up a punk girl. Even that punk girl has escaped! That's why Niskriya is missing from his place. He has a fever!
Somebody has to have some compassion on him. He was thinking to go to Goa -- not for Goa, but just to find another punk. So this story comes right on time ....
One night, the German Zen master, Stonehead Niskriya, decides that he wants to get a date. But recently, he has had trouble getting any women to go out with him because they are afraid of his fierce appearance and his Zen stick.
So Stonehead has an idea. He disguises himself in a big overcoat, a black hat and sunglasses.
Then he goes into Zorba's and sits down next to Ma Papaya Pineapple. They begin to talk. Stonehead buys her a piece of piesta, and one thing leads to another, and finally Stonehead invites Papaya back to his room.
Papaya thinks this guy looks a bit weird wearing sunglasses at night, but thinks to herself, "Ah! What the hell! My chakras are open this week!" And they go off together.
When they get to his room, Stonehead turns off all the lights. "Well, Papaya," he says, "I only like to do it in the dark. Is that okay with you?"
"Sure," says Papaya, and they begin to get undressed.
Papaya is sitting on the edge of the bed in total darkness, and Stonehead is standing next to her. When he bends over to take off his socks, Papaya reaches out in the dark and touches Stonehead's shiny, bald head, hovering near her face.
"Wow!" exclaims Papaya in shock. "You had better be careful with that thing!"
An international team of eminent zoologists gathers in Africa to do research on the life cycle of the elephant in the wild. When one year is over, all the scientists publish their reports.
The Englishman's report is titled: "The African Elephant at Tea Time."
The American's report is titled: "Fast-food Cheeseburgers and the Modern African Elephant."
The Italian report is titled: "Fitting an Elephant into a Ferrari."
The French report is titled: "The Seventy-two Love Positions of the African Elephant."
The Russian report is titled: "How to Hide Your Elephant from the KGB."
The German report is published in five volumes entitled: "An Introduction to the African Elephant's Left Testicle."
And, finally, the Polish report is titled: "Elephants? What Elephants?"
Young Father Fever is having problems again. So he goes for some fatherly advice from his superior, Father Fornicate.
"Tell me, my son," says Father Fornicate, "are you still having trouble with those nasty fantasies? You know, things like crotchless panties, French ticklers and hot buttered nuns?"
"No, no!" cries young Fever, "this time it is the big `M' -- you know, masturbation!"
"Ah! Masturbation!" replies Father Fornicate, crossing his legs and gritting his teeth. "Yes! One of my favorite subjects! What do you want to know about it?"
"Well," replies Fever, perspiring, "is it as bad as they say?"
"My boy," intones Fornicate, uncrossing his legs and adjusting his robe, "it used to be believed that masturbation led to insanity and blindness. But that is no longer thought to be true."
"I am not worried about THAT," says Father Fever, trembling. "I read in the latest Vatican report that masturbation can be the cause of a serious reduction in hearing -- even deafness!"
Father Fornicate leans forward and says, "WHAT?"
Nivedano ...
(drumbeat)
(gibberish)
Nivedano ...
(drumbeat)
Be silent ...
Close your eyes and feel your body to be completely frozen. This is the right moment to turn inwards.
Gather all your energy, your total consciousness, and rush towards your center of being -- it is just below your navel, two inches below exactly, inside -- with an urgency as if it is your last moment of life. Without such urgency and intensity, nobody has ever reached the center of his being.
Faster and faster ...
Deeper and deeper.
As you are coming closer to your center, a great silence descends over you just like soft rain. You can feel the coolness of it.
A little more close and you find a great peace arising from your own life sources, and surrounding you like fragrance.
Even the night is helping you.
The whole existence is helping you.
Not only are you meditating, the whole existence is meditating with you.
Just one step more and you are at the center of your being, utterly drunk with the divine, an authentic ecstasy which is not produced by any drug like LSD, but is part of your opening of the inner lotus.
Once it is with you, it is forever and it transforms your whole life, your activities, your responses.
At the center, with this ecstasy you are no more, only a pure space.
This pure space we have personified as Gautam the Buddha. It simply means the awakened consciousness. The face of the buddha is everybody's original face. In this space suddenly you find you are no more but buddha is your original face. You are no more but life is, eternal life -- without beginning, without end. You are no more, but existence is.
And this isness brings you tremendous liberation. This isness is the only salvation. Nobody else can give it to you, you already have it. All that is needed is a remembrance, it is a forgotten language. You got too much occupied with trivia and forgot the essential.
At this moment you are the most blessed people on the earth just because you are traveling inwards, whereas everybody is going outwards.
One thing to remember: buddha consists of only one quality -- awareness, watchfulness, remembrance, witnessing. You can call it anything, but I prefer the word `witnessing', to make it clear to you what it means.
Witness that you are not the body.
Witness that you are not the mind.
Witness that you are only a witness, just a pure mirror reflecting, responding to every situation.
To make this witnessing deeper and clearer,
Nivedano ...
(drumbeat)
Relax, but go on remembering only one thing: witnessing. Witnessing is the whole secret of meditation, the master key to all the mysteries of existence and life.
As your witnessing deepens you start melting.
Your separation disappears, all boundaries are dissolved, Gautam the Buddha Auditorium becomes an ocean of consciousness. Ten thousand buddhas have become one solid consciousness, one oceanic consciousness.
Collect all the experiences that are happening within you, the silence, the peace, the bliss, the ecstasy, the divine drunkenness, and persuade your buddha to come with you, to follow you.
These are the three steps of enlightenment: the first step, buddha comes following you like a shadow -- it is your nature, your eternal nature.
The second step, buddha comes ahead of you; you become the shadow.
And the third step, you disappear into the buddha. Not even a shadow is left of you. Only buddha is, only life is, only existence is.
This brings you immortality, eternity. It makes you whole with the cosmos, one with the whole. It is the ultimate sanity and the ultimate health and the ultimate holiness. This is Zen.
Nivedano ...
(drumbeat)
Come back, but come back as buddhas -- very silent, very peaceful, with a great grace.
Sit down for a few moments just to remember the golden path that you have traveled, and all the flowers that have showered on you of silence, peace, joy, ecstasy, and the opening into the eternal, into the ultimate, into the absolute cosmos.
Take care of the buddha who is just behind you as a silent presence. But you can touch it. It is tangible, you can feel its warmth. It will transform your ordinary acts into extraordinary responses.
It will bring to you a choiceless awareness where you simply do spontaneously what is good ... a totally new kind of morality that springs out of your spontaneity, a totally new kind of life that is lived moment to moment with absolute dedication to existence.
A new freedom, a new sky to open your wings, and a new celebration without any reason, without any cause. Just overflowing energy, overflowing juices of life, overflowing ecstasies, overflowing songs and dances.
To transform life into a celebration is the only authentic science of religion.
I celebrate myself and I want you to learn the art of celebrating yourself -- for no reason, for no cause. Just to be is enough, more than enough. To be part of the whole is such a great metamorphosis that you cannot resist -- you have to dance, you have to sing, you have to express your joy, your blissfulness. You have to share it.
Sharing your blissfulness is the only charity.
Sharing your joy is the only gratitude.
Existence has given you too much, share it.
The more you share the more you will have it
The less you share the less you will have it.
If you don't share it you won't have it at all.
Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Beloved Master.
Next: Chapter 4: Showering invisible flowers
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen I Celebrate Myself
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GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
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THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
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