The second question:

Question 2

IS IT ESSENTIAL FOR A SEEKER TO PASS THROUGH ALL THE STAGES OF SAMADHI? CAN BEING WITH A MASTER HELP TO SHOOT THROUGH A FEW?

No, it is not essential. All the stages are described by Patanjali because all the stages are possible, but not essential. You can bypass many. You can even go from the first step to the last; the whole path in between simply can be bypassed. It depends on you, your intensity, your passionate search, your total involvement. The speed depends on you.

That's why it is possible to attain a sudden enlightenment also. The whole gradual process can be dropped. Right this very moment, you can become enlightened. That's possible, but it will depend on how intense is your search, how much you are in it. If only a part of you is in it, then you will attain to a fragment, a step. If half of you is in it, then you will reach half the journey immediately, and there you will be stuck. But if your total being is in it and you are not withholding anything, you are simply allowing the whole thing to happen right now, immediately it can happen. Time is not needed.

Time is needed because your effort is part, fragmental; you do it half-heartedly. You do it, and you don't also do it. You move one step forward and one step backward simultaneously. By the right hand you do, by the left hand you undo. Then there will be many, many stages, more than Patanjali can describe. He has described all the possible stages. Many can be dropped, all can be dropped -- the whole path can be dropped. Bring your total being to your effort.

And being near with a Master can be a tremendous help, but that too depends on you. You can live physically near a Master and you may not be near him at all, because to be with a Master is not a question of physical closeness; it is a question how much you are open towards him, how much you trust, how much is your love for him, how much you can give of your being to him. If you are really close, that means if you trust and love, then there is no other closeness. It is not a question of space, it is a question of love. If you are really close to a Master, all the paths, all the methods can be dropped because being close to a Master is the ultimate method. Nothing like it exists. Nothing is comparable to it. Then you can simply forget about all the methods, all the Patanjalis; you can simply forget about them. Just being close to a Master and allowing the Master to enter your being, you become just a receptivity, no choice on your part, just an opening, then this very moment the phenomenon is possible.

And I would like to remind you that by all the methods that exist in the world, many people have not reached. Greater number of people have reached through being near a Master -- that is the greatest technique. But finally, everything depends on you.

That is the problem, that is the very crux of the problem: it doesn't depend on me. Otherwise I would have given you already; then there would have been no problem. One Buddha would have been enough, and he would have given to all because he has infinity in his hands; you cannot exhaust it. He can go on giving and giving and giving, and he is always ready to give because the more he gives, the more he gets. The more he shares, the more unknown sources open, unknown streams start flowing towards him. One Buddha would have given enlightenment to all the beings if it was dependent on a Master. It is not. In your ignorance, in your egoistic state of mind, in your closed imprisoned being, you will reject even if a Buddha wants to give it to you. Unless you want it you will reject; it cannot be given to you against you. You have to receive it, and you have to receive it very consciously, alert and aware. Only in deep awareness and deep receptivity it can be received.

Being near with a Master, close in love and trust, and allowing the Master to do whatsoever he would like to do, with no choice of your own, then there is no need to do anything. But then, don't expect; then don't even in a deeper part of your mind demand, because the very expectation and demand will become the barrier. Then you simply wait. Even if it is going to happen after many, many lives, even if you have to wait unto eternity, wait. And this waiting should not be a sad, depressed waiting. It should be a celebrating waiting; it should be festive; it should be full of joy.

So these are the things: then you can become closer and closer and closer, and suddenly one day comes -- the flame of the Master and the flame of your being become one. Suddenly there is a jump: you are no more there, and no more is the Master; you have become one. In that oneness, all that the Master can give to you, he has given it to you. He has poured himself into you.

So it is not essential for a seeker to pass through all the stages of samadhi. It becomes essential only because you are not enough of a seeker... Then many stages. If you are really intense, sincere, authentic, if you are ready to die this very moment, it can happen.