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Kabir

ECSTASY: THE FORGOTTEN LANGUAGE

Chapter-10

The choice is yours

Third Question

 

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts         Kabir          Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language

 

 

Question 3

OH, THE RELIGION! THE ADORATION OF THE PAST! THE BEAUTY AND SENTIMENTALITY AF THE PAST!

SINCE I WAS A LITTLE CHILD, I HAVE ALWAYS FELT LIKE THINKING ABOUT THE PAST AND GETTING A FEELING OF SWEET PAIN, THAT THE PAST IS GONE, AND CRYING SWEET AND WARM TEARS AND REALLY ENJOYING THE WHOLE THING VERY MUCH -- THIS WHOLE THING CALLED NOSTALGIA. SOMETIMES I REALLY LOVE MY PAST. HAVING A PAST TO PLAY WITH, I FEEL BLESSED. AM I A FOOL?

SO I HEAR YOU AND AGREE WITH YOU, INTELLECTUAL, THAT THE PAST IS NONEXISTENTIAL AND UNREAL, BUT I SEEM TO FEEL DIFFERENT ABOUT IT. WHAT IS GOING ON?

IF NOSTALGIA IS JUST A TRICK OF THE EGO, WHICH IT MUST BE, THEN WHY DOES IT COMES AS A GOOD WARM FEELING?

HOW CAN THE DEVIL BE SWEET?

OR HOW CAN MY FEELINGS BE UNREAL?

OR IF MY FEELINGS ARE UNREAL, WHAT IS LEFT?

The one question is not one question; it is seven questions. So we will have to be surgical. Excuse me. We will have to cut this question into seven parts.

First: "Oh, the religion! The adoration of the past!'' Religion is not the adoration of the past. It has nothing to do with the past. Religion is possibility, not past. Religion is potentiality for the future, not past. Religion is not looking backwards; it is looking forwards. Religion is not memory, but hope. But you have been trained to look at the past because you have been trained not by religious people but by Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans. These are not religious people. You have been conditioned by the priests and the popes and the SHANKARACHARYAS. These are not religious people.

If you come to a religious person, he will give you hope for the future -- he will give you a fire for the future. He will not talk about the dead past. To look at the dead past is dangerous. For one thing, it cannot be repeated. Second, one who goes on looking back cannot live the future. It is as if you are driving your car looking only in the rearview mirror. You are doomed! The rearview mirror is not for that. When you reverse your car, it's okay, use it; or sometimes somebody is honking his horn from behind, look. But don't get obsessed with the rearview mirror. It may be a beautiful mirror, but please, look ahead. You are driving in the future. Looking backwards and driving in the future is dangerous; then the accident is almost predictable. It is not an accident; it is a certainty; it is going to happen.

Remember, all movement is towards the future; you cannot move towards the past. Movement is only towards the future, but you can look towards the past. And if you go on looking towards the past, still you are moving towards the future, and if your life becomes accidental, prone to accidents, and you collide and bump and this and that and your whole life becomes a misery, it is natural. Look where you are going. Don't look to the past where you have been.

No, you must have been taught by Christians. Hindus, Mohammedans; that's why you think,''Oh, the religion! The adoration of the past!" Religion has nothing to do with the past, because religion has nothing to do with the dead. It is a concern with life, a commitment to life.

"The beauty and sentimentality of the past!" There is nothing beautiful in it. How can the dead be beautiful? You don't know what beauty is then. Beauty is always in the alive. Beauty is always of the present. But if you have become blind to the present, then of course you know only one beauty, and that is of the past. And that is not beauty at all. Beauty is throbbing, pulsating with life. Beauty is always here-now; it is not in the past.

But to be here-now needs great courage. To be here-now needs great awareness. To be here-now needs great intelligence. So people have chosen not to bother with the herenow; they look back, they look at the past. Now no intelligence is needed to look at the past -- any stupid person can do that. Anybody can look at that which has happened. To look at that which is happening needs subtle, tremendous awareness. And that is the way the future is going to happen.

The future is constantly turning into the present; the present is constantly turning into the past. The past is out of your hands; you cannot do anything-with it. Then don't get stuck with it, because nothing can be done about it. You cannot undo it. You cannot change it. It is impossible. It is futile to waste time with it. But there are people -- millions of people, they are the majority -- who go on thinking about the past, who go on decorating it in their memory. They are missing the real. They have become involved with the unreal, with the gone. These people are dead people.

There is nothing beautiful in a grave. There is nothing beautiful in a skeleton. It simply stinks. A dead body simply stinks. There is nothing beautiful in it.

Beauty needs life, because beauty needs heartbeat, beauty needs pulsation, streaming, energy, vitality. The past is just a memory. You are just playing a tape when you start looking at the past; you are just looking at a movie. It is no longer anywhere; it is just in your head. And it is mechanical. Now scientists say that it is absolutely mechanical. They have found that if electrodes are touched at certain centers of the mind, certain memories start unfolding. You think you are free? You are wrong.

If your skull is opened and a certain spot is touched with an electrode, some electricity is given to that spot, a certain memory will start. You will see you are a child. Suddenly! You were not thinking about it. You will see you are a child, running in the garden in the morning sun trying to catch a butterfly; and you have fallen and you have broken your leg. And if the electrode is taken away, the memory stops. Again if the electrode is touched to the same spot, the same memory repeats in the same way again: you are a child in the garden running in the morning sun trying to catch a butterfly; you have fallen; you have broken your leg. Put the electrode off; the memory disappears. Put the electrode on again; the memory again starts the same way: you are a child....

This is a mechanical thing. And you cannot stop it! Remember, when the electrode is there, do whatsoever you want to do -- shake your head and want to get rid of it -- you cannot. The tape is running, the film is moving, the film is on the projector. Your mind simply functions as a screen. Nothing is beautiful in it; it is a mechanical thing.

To be here-now you have to be aware, not mechanical. To be in the past any machine will do; you are not needed.

Sooner or later, when a person dies, a person like Albert Einstein, they will take his tape out. Right now it is difficult, but sooner or later they will find the way to take the brain out and keep it alive as a machine, and then they can play it; it can be projected on a screen. Einstein will not be there, but his memories will be there and they will be played on a screen, and he will again and again discover the theory of relativity -- and he is not there.

Mind, when functioning as the past, is a mechanism. When mind thinks about the future, again, it is the past projecting into the future. When you start thinking about tomorrow, what is your tomorrow? Just a modified form -- a little decorated, retouched here and there -- just your yesterday projected again. Maybe there are a few things you don't want. Your woman nagged you too much yesterday. You don't want her to nag you again, you don't want her to do that again tomorrow. Maybe you drop that. You were eating in a Chinese restaurant and it was tremendously delicious and you would like to eat there tomorrow again -- and a little more. This is how your tomorrow comes, from the gone yesterday -- a little retouched here and there, decorated, polished, modified, refined, but it is the gone yesterday projected again.

Only the present is not mechanical. Only the present is real. Only this moment is real. And only this moment is beautiful.

"... I have always felt like thinking about the past and getting a feeling of sweet pain, that the past-is gone, and crying sweet and warm tears and really enjoying the whole thing very much...." People do that, they go on enjoying the past very much, because they don't have any future and they don't have any present. These people are dead people, corpses walking on the streets.

Stop getting into the past too much. Detach yourself: Get out of your past. Yes, sometimes it can be very sweet. because you are completely free to choose. People choose good things from the past and go on dumping the bad things in their basement. That's why everybody thinks their childhood was paradise. It is not so. Ask the psychologists. They say it is a chosen part; you have chosen a few pages. Whatsoever you feel beautiful, you have chosen and you go on looking at it. And not only that, you go on magnifying its beauty, its sweetness, its goodness.

And this only shows one thing -- this obsession with the past shows only one thing: your present is ugly. This shows only one thing: that you are impotent as far as the present is concerned. A really potent man or woman, a really vital person who lives in the present, will not have time to go into the past. The present is so absorbing, the present is so enchanting, the present is so tremendously alive, why should one go to the past? You go to the past only because you have not yet learned how to be in the present.

And to be in the present is to be religious. because to be in the present needs awareness. And awareness is the very key of all religion.

"Sometimes I really love my past. Having a past to play with, I feel blessed. Am I a fool?" Certainly, absolutely -- and a perfect fool at that. Get out of this, and the sooner you do, the better. Be a little wiser with your life.

"So I hear you and agree with you, intellectually...." There is never any agreement intellectually. This is a way of saying that you don't agree with me. "Intellectual" agreement? It is not an agreement at all. It is as if somebody comes and says,''I love you very much -- intellectually. What do you mean? Intellectually? How can love happen intellectually? How can you agree with me intellectually'? Maybe you cannot argue, maybe you feel yourself a little at a loss as to how to argue with me -- you feel silenced -- but it is not agreement. To agree intellectually is not to agree at all. Unless you agree totally, you agree not.

"So I hear you and agree with you, intellectually, that the past is nonexistential and unreal....'' I am not giving you any theory or philosophy. I am simply stating facts. There is no question of agreement or disagreement. When I say the trees are green, do you agree with me intellectually, or do you disagree with me? You simply look at the trees and you say, "Right. Trees are green." When I say the past is gone, am I saying some philosophy to you, am I preaching some philosophy to you? "The past is gone" is as much a fact as "the trees are green." You know it, I know it, everybody knows it: the past is gone. The past MEANS that which is gone. The past is the past. Do you have to agree with me about this too? Then either I am mad or you are mad!

If I say the sun has risen and you say, "Yes. I think I will agree with you".... About facts one need not agree or disagree. Just look at the fact. Either it is a fact or it is not a fact. How can you hesitate between agreement and disagreement? Either I am stating some fictitious thing or I am stating a fact. Just look into the fact.

The past is gone -- you are no longer a child, or you are no longer a young man. The past is gone. Let the gone be gone. That's what Jesus says when he says, "Let the dead bury their dead." Let the gone be gone, and look at that which is.

And now one thing to be remembered. A person who is so obsessed with the past, his past is not reliable either. Because, for example, today, right now, I am talking to you. This is the present. Tomorrow it will have become the past and then you will think about it -- Osho talking to you and how beautiful it was. Look at the foolishness of it. One doctor used to come here, and he would continuously take notes. I asked him, "What dp you go on doing?" He said, "I take notes because you say such beautiful things, I would like to remember them later on." "But when I am talking right now, then you are taking notes. Your notes are not reliable, because you don't hear me: you are concerned with the notes too much. Your concern with the notes simply says you are too concerned with changing the present into the past, and then you will enjoy."

Yes, there are people.... There is a certain category of people called the "tourists." It is a sort of neurosis. They go to the Himalayas. They don't look at the Himalayas -- they are continuously clicking their cameras and looking at the guidebook and listening to the guide. The Himalayas are not a concern at all. And if you ask them they will say, "Yes, back at home, resting in our armchairs, we will look at the album."

Don't be a tourist. "Tourist" is a certain sort of neurosis. When you are facing the Himalayas, tell the guide to keep quiet, because whatsoever he says is meaningless. The Himalayas are there, you are facing Gourishankar; let everybody keep quiet. Look at it, face it, encounter it. It is tremendously beautiful. Don't bring your camera in; the camera will falsify it. And the camera can give only one aspect; just a small window will open. The whole of the Himalayas was available in its totality, and you missed that. And you will look back home -- with nostalgia -- at how beautiful were the Himalayas. And you were never there! You were with your camera and you were listening to the guide and you were looking at the guidebook and the map -- and you were never there. Maybe when you were in the Himalayas you were thinking about your home -- with nostalgia!

I cannot trust you that you had a real past. Your past is gone, and even that past cannot be very real. Because you don't know how to live in the present, how can your past be real? Not even as a memory is it worth trusting. First live in the present -- let the present have its total impact on you -- then your past will have something, a true memory. Otherwise your memory is not reliable. You may be imagining it; you may be dreaming about it.

While I am talking to you, be here with me. When you are in Poona, be in Poona. Otherwise there are people: when they are in Poona they think of Philadelphia, and when they are in Philadelphia they will think of Poona. They go on falsifying everything.

"If nostalgia is just a trick of the ego, which it must be, then why does it come as a good warm feeling?" Because you don't know how to be warm here-now. Because you don't know how to be loving here-now. You are cold and frozen here-now, so you seek warmth in memories. You are tremendously poor. I feel sorry for you.

"How can the devil be sweet?" The devil is always sweet. God is sometimes bitter too, but the devil is always sweet. He has to be sweet; otherwise how will he deceive you? He cannot afford to be bitter. He has to always buttress you.

"How can my feelings be unreal?" I am not saying that your feelings are unreal. I am saying feelings exist in the present. In fact the word "feel" has no past tense. I don't know about language and the grammarians, but I say to you, the word "feel" has no past tense -- cannot have. "Feel" means "feel here-now." Thinking is always past; thinking has no present tense. You cannot think here-now. The moment you think, you are lost, you have lost track of the present. Feeling is always of the present; thinking, always of the past.

You try it. And I am stating a fact. You try it. If you think, you always think of that which is gone or that which has not come yet; both nonexistential. Thinking is nonexistential. Feeling is existential. If you love a person, and you feel the love, you feel here-now. How can you have the feeling of yesterday? You will THINK that you felt yesterday; you cannot FEEL it. And to think that you felt is not feeling; it is thinking. It is a deception.

And, "If my feelings are unreal, what is left?" I am not saying your feelings are unreal. I am saying you are unreal. And when you are not left, God is. God knows only the present; God has no past and no future. God always is. You cannot make a sentence "God WAS"; it will be meaningless. You cannot say "God WILL BE"; that too will be meaningless. God is always is; God is isness, the absolute present.

When you are not there.... And you are nothing but your past. What are you? Just a collection of the past. Drop your past, and you are not. The ego is nothing but a collective name for your whole past; and when you don't live in the past, you start living egolessly. Then moment to moment you go on dying to the past, you go on renouncing the past, and each moment you are fresh, young, virgin. And in that virginity is God.

The soldier returned home unexpectedly on a fast leave. A few minutes later he was in bed with his wife when the janitor knocked on the door. "My God," he screamed, jumping out of bed, "it is your husband!"

"Don't be silly," said his wife. "My husband is in Germany."

Get it? They both forgot the present. The soldier has come on a fast leave and immediately gets into bed with the wife, and the janitor knocks on the door. Of course he must have become afraid, as he must have been becoming afraid in other people's houses with other people's wives, and he suddenly jumps off the bed, and he says, "My God, it is your husband!" And he is the husband! "Don't be silly," says his wife. "My husband is in Germany." She must be sleeping with others. And both are in the past. People are so unaware of the present. People are not in the present at all. That's how they are missing God. God is the present, and you are not in the present. To be present -- in the present -- is to be in meditation. That's all meditation is about. To be present is to be prayerful.

 

Next: Chapter 10, The choice is yours, Fourth Question

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts         Kabir           Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language

 

 

Chapter 10

 

  • Kabir, Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language Chapter 10: The choice is yours, Question 1
    Kabir, Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language Chapter 10: The choice is yours, Question 1, ARE YOU THE ONLY ENLIGHTENED PERSON IN THIS ASHRAM? IF YES, IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ENLIGHTEN OR TO BE ENLIGHTENED NEAR AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON? at energyenhancement.org

  • Kabir, Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language Chapter 10: The choice is yours, Question 2
    Kabir, Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language Chapter 10: The choice is yours, Question 2, WHEN I CAME HERE I WAS TENSE. PEOPLE LOOKED UNFRIENDLY, NOT OPEN. NOW ALL THAT HAS CHANGED; EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL. I HAVE HAD SIMILAR EXPERIENCES BEFORE, BUT THEY HAVE ALWAYS FADED AWAY. I HOPE IT IS NOW WISDOM AND WILL NOT FADE, BUT IF EAR IT MAY BE KNOWLEDGE AND I WILL LOSE IT at energyenhancement.org

  • Kabir, Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language Chapter 10: The choice is yours, Question 3
    Kabir, Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language Chapter 10: The choice is yours, Question 3, OH, THE RELIGION! THE ADORATION OF THE PAST! THE BEAUTY AND SENTIMENTALITY AF THE PAST! SINCE I WAS A LITTLE CHILD, I HAVE ALWAYS FELT LIKE THINKING ABOUT THE PAST AND GETTING A FEELING OF SWEET PAIN, THAT THE PAST IS GONE, AND CRYING SWEET AND WARM TEARS AND REALLY ENJOYING THE WHOLE THING VERY MUCH -- THIS WHOLE THING CALLED NOSTALGIA. SOMETIMES I REALLY LOVE MY PAST. HAVING A PAST TO PLAY WITH, I FEEL BLESSED. AM I A FOOL? SO I HEAR YOU AND AGREE WITH YOU, INTELLECTUAL, THAT THE PAST IS NONEXISTENTIAL AND UNREAL, BUT I SEEM TO FEEL DIFFERENT ABOUT IT. WHAT IS GOING ON? IF NOSTALGIA IS JUST A TRICK OF THE EGO, WHICH IT MUST BE, THEN WHY DOES IT COMES AS A GOOD WARM FEELING? HOW CAN THE DEVIL BE SWEET? OR HOW CAN MY FEELINGS BE UNREAL? OR IF MY FEELINGS ARE UNREAL, WHAT IS LEFT? at energyenhancement.org

  • Kabir, Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language Chapter 10: The choice is yours, Question 4
    Kabir, Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language Chapter 10: The choice is yours, Question 4, ONCE IN A WHILE, MY MIND LOOKS AT YOUR CLOSE DISCIPLES, LIKE THE TALL ENGLISH GUY WITH THE SAD FACE. ONE HEARS HIS SAD VOICE AS HE READS THE SUTRA. THE GUY NEVER SMILES, NEVER LETS GO. DO PEOPLE BECOME VERY SERIOUS IF THEY ARE SO NEAR YOU? at energyenhancement.org

 

 

 
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