FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM
The psychology of the buddhas
FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM
The psychology of the buddhas
BELOVED MASTER,
PLEASE EXPLAIN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BUDDHAS.
Man can be understood as a seven-story building: three stories are underground,
three stories are above ground. One story, the middle one, is half underground
and half above ground. This fourth story is where we are. Sigmund Freud calls it
conscious mind.
When Freud started working with sick people, he became aware that there is
something underneath the conscious mind. He called it the unconscious mind. He
stopped there. He thought he had discovered something new -- and in a way he was
right, because he was not aware of the Eastern psychology that has existed for
thousands of years which has taken note of all the states of the mind. So it was
a re-discovery.
Sigmund Freud's closest colleague, and the most talented psychologist, was Carl
Gustav Jung. He worked even harder, went deeper into the psyche of man, and
found another story underneath the unconscious. He called it the collective
unconscious mind. He stopped there. It is enough for one man to discover even
one story, because it is such a vast phenomenon. And, after Jung, nobody has
gone deeper than that.
But in the East, below the collective unconscious mind, we have discovered the
last story -- the cosmic unconscious mind. In the East these minds are simply
mentioned, no details are given. The reason is clear... because the search in
the East and in the West differed fundamentally. The Western psychologists were
concerned with sick people, insane people; naturally, they have to go below the
conscious mind to the unconscious. But if there was somebody who was even more
insane, they had to go to the collective unconscious. But it is very rare to
find a man who is so mad that he has reached the cosmic unconscious mind. If
somebody goes that mad, he will be almost a rock. That's why they have not been
able to discover the cosmic unconscious mind.
But, in the East, the search was totally different. They started looking into
the minds of meditators, not madmen. As they worked, they found that above the
conscious mind there is a superconscious mind. And many religions have stopped
there, thinking they have arrived -- it is so beautiful, so peaceful.
But a few seekers continued to fly higher and higher, and found another story
on top of the superconscious mind: the collective superconscious mind. Most of
the seekers stopped there; the joy is too much, uncontainable. It is
unbelievable that there can be anything more. But only a few have gone to the
very end, to the highest peak -- and they have found the cosmic conscious mind.
The cosmic conscious mind is what I call the state of enlightenment, the state
of buddhahood.
The West has not even started working upwards. It has not even finished the
downward journey. And it is not just accidental that more psychologists,
psychotherapists, psychiatrists go mad than any other profession. It looks
strange: these people should be the sanest people -- but you don't see the
complexity.
With their patients they are going deeper into darkness -- and going with the
patients, they are becoming vulnerable themselves. Seeing the patient has fallen
from his conscious mind into the unconscious, they become aware of their own
unconscious. Seeing the patient who has fallen into the collective unconscious,
they become aware of their own collective unconscious. And it is like standing
on the verge of an abysmal depth. Just a single wrong step and you will be
drowned in darkness.
More psychologists commit suicide than any other profession: the proportion is
almost double. More psychologists are sexually perverted than in any other
profession. One should have thought just the opposite -- that the people who
know psychology, the workings of the mind, would be more natural, healthier,
saner. But that is not the case, and the reason is that Western psychology has
never looked upwards. It has never worked with meditators. It has never raised
its eyes towards the sky; it is focused towards deeper and deeper, darker and
darker spaces. They have not been studying healthy people.
In fact, why should somebody who is healthy go to a psychoanalyst? -- and
particularly somebody who has attained to superconsciousness. He will have a far
vaster vision than any psychologist. He has nothing to learn from them; he can
teach them many things of which they are absolutely unaware. The man who has
reached to the collective superconsciousness has become almost superhuman.
But in the West, in the first place it was difficult to find such people.
Secondly, where such people existed, the Western psychologists were afraid to go;
their very existence disturbed their petty theories. They want to be very
systematic -- and then suddenly they come across a man who has a superconscious
mind. He disturbs their whole system. His functioning is different, his behavior
is different, his actions are different.
He looks at the same things with a different eye. He listens to the same words,
but with a deeper and profounder meaning. He lives the same ordinary life, but
with such a joy, with such a radiance, that it is unbelievable. He has nothing
to be so blissful about, but it cannot be denied that he is blissful.
The man of the higher stage -- the collective superconscious -- will be a
giant. Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Alfred Adler, Assagioli, will look
like pygmies before him. And nobody wants to look like a pygmy. It is said,
in the East, that camels don't like mountains. Without the mountains around
they are greatly content with their height, but by the side of a mountain
the camel simply finds that he is nothing.
Western psychology has been avoiding facing the reality of the higher
states of mind. I call these people cowards. They are trying to look busy in
mental asylums, or sitting by the side of the couch and listening to the
dreams of some stupid guy -- mostly Americans, because you have to tell your
dream and you have to pay too; otherwise, who is going to listen to your
stupid dream?
The psychologist is paid -- it is the most highly paid profession today --
for a strange thing: that he listens. Whether he listens or not you don't
know. He just sits behind the couch so you cannot even see him, whether he
is dozing, thinking, "When is this guy going to finish?"
I have heard that one psychologist was very famous; each single minute you
had to pay for. And a rich man, a very rich man, became his patient; of
course, poor people cannot afford psychology -- thank God!
The rich man was able to pay whatever the psychologist wanted, but he had a
condition: he was not to be interrupted. When he started telling his dreams
then you had to listen, whatsoever the charge; money did not matter. And he
went on and on. He was driving the psychologist nuts!
Finally, the psychologist said, "It takes too much time, and I have to see
other patients also. So I will do one thing: I will put on my tape recorder
so whatever you say will be recorded. And in the night, when I have time, I
can listen to it."
The rich man said, "That's a perfectly good arrangement."
Next day, when the psychologist was coming in the office, he saw the rich
man leaving the office -- and the office had just opened. He said, "So soon?
Are you finished with the story?"
He said, "No, but I thought, if you are saving your time, why should I
waste mine? So in the night when I had time I recorded it. So my tape
recorder is telling the story, your tape recorder is listening to it. Your
time is saved, my time is saved."
Western psychology is in very bad shape. And the reason is, to study higher
states of consciousness nobody is going to pay you; on the contrary, they
may ask you to pay! The lower states, where a person becomes insane, are
paying -- and when something like psychology becomes a business, it is
dangerous. There should be a few things which should not be business. Now,
it is the business aspect of psychology that is preventing it from studying
higher states.
At the level of superconscious mind, all thoughts, all feelings disappear;
you start living in an absolute silence. But this silence is a little bit
empty. It is beautiful; just to be silent, utterly silent, has a beauty of
its own. But when you reach to the collective superconscious you become
aware that silence can remain and yet it can become full; it need not be
empty. It can become full of joy, it can become full of love, it can become
full of creativity.
But there is still one higher stage: the cosmic superconsciousness, where
your individuality disappears like a dewdrop falling into the ocean.
Suddenly you become the whole ocean. At the stage of cosmic
superconsciousness you start experiencing the ultimate truth of life, the
meaning of existence, your unity with the whole.
Things are no longer outside you, you are no longer outside of things: all
divisions have disappeared. In some strange way the sunrise is within you,
and the stars are within you, and the flowers are within you. You have
become spread over the whole cosmos.
There is tremendous liveliness. Birds are singing, peacocks dancing. The
whole existence is your home. Only one thing you cannot find: your tiny ego.
That is lost somewhere on the way. You are, and you are for the first time,
but you are not an ego, you are just pure isness.
The psychology of the awakened ones covers the whole range -- all the seven
stories. The lower three stories are not bothered about. Years of
psychoanalysis is sheer wastage. In the psychology of the awakened ones,
anybody who has fallen below the conscious is simply taught a simple method
of meditation, which brings him back to normal consciousness without any
analysis, without going through years of all kinds of torture.
And the same method -- once you know it has brought you from the
unconscious to the conscious, you have a master key in your hands, because
the method to pass from one story into another is the same. The same method
of witnessing takes you away from conscious mind to superconscious mind.
Don't stop. There will be great temptation to stop, because you have not
seen such serenity, such tranquility -- you may think perhaps the end has
come. No. Until you feel oneness with the whole existence, go on. The same
method will take you step by step to the final and ultimate stage of being.
Western psychology is only for sick people. Eastern psychology is for
healthy people. My effort is to bring them together -- because healthy or
sick, they are the same people. And if a method is available which can take
you from one stage to another higher than it, then why stop anywhere? Just
being normal is nothing. There are higher treasures waiting for you, greater
experiences ready to be yours. The ultimate home has no doors: you can
simply enter it.
Western psychology has no method through which the patient himself can
become independent from the psychologist. He becomes dependent. In fact, it
becomes something of prestige; people ask each other, "Who is your
psychoanalyst?" If you cannot say some great name, that means you are
missing something.
And the psychoanalyst, after years of analysis, reaches nowhere, helps you
to reach nowhere. You can change the psychoanalyst -- and that's what people
go on doing. It becomes an addiction. Two sessions per week -- if they don't
have them, then they start feeling uneasy. It is a kind of catharsis. Just
speaking your mind without any inhibition, without any taboos, helps you to
unburden.
But within two to three days you accumulate again the same burden, because
the psychoanalysis, as it is practiced, is not destroying your inhibitions,
it is simply giving you temporary relief. At the most you may become a
normal human being. That means you may reach to the fourth stage, in which
the whole of humanity is living. That is not much of a gain.
And you have not been given any insight into how to go on growing. You have
not even been told that there is anything above the normal conscious mind.
In fact, even the psychoanalysts don't know that there is something above it
-- and they are not interested, for the simple reason that the person who
goes above is not a patient. He has no dreams to analyze, he is not sick
anymore. He is for the first time healthy, and getting more and more healthy.
At the seventh stage he will be whole.
To me, that's what "holy" should mean -- not being a saint according to a
certain doctrine, not being an ascetic, not following Christianity, Judaism,
Hinduism.
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The real holiness is the fragrance of becoming whole, becoming one with the
whole.
But because psychoanalysis has become a business in the West... and it was
meant to become a business. It was created by a Jew, and it is mostly
dominated by the Jews; it is a Jewish profession. And whatever the Jews do
will become a business. Christianity became a business -- that was the
working of a Jewish carpenter, Jesus Christ. It is big business. Sigmund
Freud has created another big business.
What I am saying and doing is to destroy it as a business. It is something
more valuable. It is something that should not be categorized as a
profession, as a business: it is human growth, and we should look for higher
states.
Perhaps the people who have fallen lower than the normal, if they had known
that there were higher stages, may have fallen higher. Why choose the lower
when you know...?
There is a story, a Sufi story. It must be a story, it cannot be true, but
it has some truth in it. A Sufi mystic, who was known to be a little bit
eccentric, a little crazy, was staying in a disciple's house. And they
thought, "This man is known to do things which create unnecessary nuisance,
and he enjoys it. So let him sleep in the basement, and we will lock the
door so in the night at least he cannot do anything."
Suddenly in the middle of the night they heard great laughter coming from
the roof. They rushed up, and they saw the saint rolling on the roof and
laughing a belly laughter. He could not stop even to tell them what had
happened.
The host asked, "What has happened?"
He said, "Strange things happen to me -- I started falling upwards! You put
me in the basement, and in the night I started falling upwards -- I am here
on the roof! That's why I am laughing, because this is not the normal way of
falling, and you will think that I am being a nuisance."
The story may be a story, but such stories are told to say something which
cannot be said otherwise.
The people who have fallen below the normal mind, if they had known that
there is a door upwards, may have chosen to fall upwards. For example, all
great artists, painters, poets, dancers, musicians, sculptors -- most of
them have been, sometime or other, inmates in a mad asylum. And these were
the most intelligent people you can find on the earth.
I can clearly see that a person like Vincent van Gogh, if he had known....
(THERE IS THE LOUD ROAR OF A MILITARY JET PASSING OVERHEAD.) Don't be
worried: somebody has fallen down, has lost his normal consciousness.
Otherwise, the whole sky is available, there was no need to come so low --
but it happened at the right moment!
Vincent van Gogh, if he had known that there is some door upwards -- I
cannot conceive that he would have fallen downwards. (THE JET RETURNS.) He
is back again! But still don't be afraid. He is falling, but he will not
fall too much, because there are only three stories down and he seems to be
on the third already. (THE JET RETURNS AGAIN.) He is giving proof!
My work here is to bring the Eastern discoveries of higher consciousness to
the West and create the psychology of the buddhas, so that there is no need
for anyone to fall down. Just make the passage going upwards available to
every person.
Most of the great painters and other artists have committed suicide because
they could not prevent themselves from falling again and again back into
madness, and it seemed that only death could become their deliverance. This
is shameful, this is ugly! In the East, in the whole of history, not a
single artist has been mad, not a single artist has committed suicide. And
they have created far greater art, far deeper music, far more magical
dances. The West cannot compare.
But what happened? Why did these people not become mad, not commit suicide?
The reason was, the higher realms were available. And they had the
intelligence: they were not satisfied with the normal consciousness, they
had to move away from the normal consciousness. If there is no way to go up,
they were ready to go down, but they wanted to move away from normal
consciousness.
But once they are made aware that higher possibilities exist, I don't think
anybody is going to choose lower realms.
It is something of tremendous importance to understand that Western history
is not more than two thousand years old. The East is at least ten thousand
years old. And yet in ten thousand years not a single case of madness or
suicide amongst such intelligent creators who made the Taj Mahal, who made
the temples of Khajuraho, who made the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, the
temples of Konarak -- there exists nothing comparable to them anywhere in
the world.
In China, there is a temple known as the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas,
because the temple has ten thousand statues of Buddha. It is almost the
whole mountain, carved. It must have taken centuries, and thousands of
sculptors, craftsmen, designers to create a temple out of the mountain --
and with ten thousand beautiful statues of Buddha. Just sitting inside it
you will feel that you are uplifted. The whole atmosphere is vibrant. Not a
single artist has fallen into the depths and darkness, as has been happening
in the West to almost every artist.
This situation can be changed. But the psychology should be transformed. It
should not be oriented to the insane people; its orientation should come
from the awakened ones.
Meditation is simply a method to go beyond your normal mind. And anyone who
meditates cannot fall below the normal mind. That is an impossibility. And
anyone who meditates is sooner or later going to reach his real home --
which is not only his, which is our home.
Question 2
BELOVED MASTER,
SHAKESPEARE SAID, "THERE WAS NEVER A PHILOSOPHER WHO COULD ENDURE THE
TOOTHACHE." WHAT IS THE MYSTIC'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS PHYSICAL PAIN?
Shakespeare is right. There has never been a philosopher who could bear a
toothache, because philosophy has nothing to do with toothache, headache,
stomachache. Philosophy is just intellectual gymnastics, it has nothing to
do with reality. It talks, argues, creates magnificent systems of thought,
but it does not change the man who is creating all this. He remains the same
man.
For example, I remember that Immanuel Kant, one of the great philosophers
of Germany, became very sick. The doctors were at a loss, because there was
no reason for his sickness. They could not find anything wrong with his
body.
Then one of the friends who had been out of town came back. He looked
around and he said, "Don't be worried, I know what is the cause."
The doctors said, "We have been searching for the cause and we don't know
it. You are not a doctor -- how do you know the cause?"
He said, "I know Immanuel Kant. The window in the room is the place where
he used to stand every morning to see the sunrise. The neighboring house has
been sold to a new owner and they have planted tall trees just close to the
window. And Immanuel Kant is a man who functions just like clockwork --
moment to moment, things have to be exactly the same. These trees are the
cause of his sickness."
The friend went to the neighbor and told him. He said, "If this is the
cause, anybody could have come and told me. Immanuel Kant is so precious a
man -- we will cut down the trees immediately."
The trees were removed, and the next day Immanuel Kant was perfectly
healthy -- not even a toothache. But because he cannot see the sunrise from
his window.... He could have seen it from somewhere else, but that was not
his way. He had very fixed habits.
At ten o'clock in the night he would go to bed. Everybody knew about it.
Once in a while somebody who was not aware of the fact would be simply
shocked, because Immanuel Kant, seeing the clock striking the hour of ten,
would simply jump into his bed and cover himself with his blanket. He would
not even say good night, and the man was sitting there!
His servant would come and say, "The master has gone to sleep. He goes
exactly according to the clock, so he cannot waste a single moment even in
saying good night. Now you have to go -- you can come tomorrow, or whenever
you like. But don't feel offended, he does not mean any offense to anybody."
He was habituated to getting up early in the morning, at five o'clock. He
loved the early morning fresh air, the crispness of it, and the silence of
the road. But to get up at five was a difficulty. The servant was told that
he had to wake him at five, whatsoever happens. Kant would fight, he might
hit the servant. The servant was allowed to hit him, drag him out of the
bed, push him into the bathroom. You could do everything, but if you allowed
him to sleep, your service was finished.
And this was a daily ritual: the servant beating the master, the master
beating the servant. He was hiding under the blanket, and the servant was
pulling him out and forcing him into the bathroom; he was coming out again
and again, and trying to get into the bed.
Immanuel Kant would say at that time, "What are you doing? You are my
servant, and I am saying that I want to sleep!"
But he had warned him, "I will say such things! You are not to listen to
ANYthing. I may say that I am feeling sick, I don't want to get up. Don't
listen to any argument, any excuse: your work is to put me in the bathroom,
so that at exactly five I am on the road."
He was a man of tremendous intelligence and he created a great
philosophical system; but as far as his attitude, his approach towards life
is concerned, he behaved very childishly -- not even in a mature way. It
seems his philosophical intelligence had become overgrown, and everything
else had remained retarded.
You ask me, "What will be the mystic's attitude?"
I will tell you an incident -- it happened in this century.... In 1920, the
maharaja of Varanasi in India had to go through an operation for
appendicitis, but he refused to take any anesthesia, any chloroform,
anything that could make him unconscious.
He said, "I have been working my whole life to expand my consciousness.
Just for this small operation I am not going to take anything that goes
against my consciousness; I don't want to fall into unconsciousness."
He told his doctors, "Don't be worried" -- and the doctors had been called
from England, the best surgeons. But they were concerned because it was a
major operation, and to do it without giving any anesthesia was unheard of.
But there was no way. The maharaja was adamant, and he said, "I tell you
that there is no problem. I will simply close my eyes and go into my
meditation. Then what happens to my body, I am simply a witness of it."
It was not understandable for the surgeons, but to wait was also dangerous;
the operation had to be done as quickly as possible. So finally they had to
agree.
The maharaja closed his eyes, relaxed his body, and the operation was done.
It took two hours. The doctors could not believe their own eyes, that the
man was there, fully conscious, yet there was no sign of pain on his face.
When the operation was over he opened his eyes, and he said, "I loved it.
It was a great experience to witness my body being operated on, and just to
stand there aloof, far away -- as if something is happening to somebody
else."
That's the mystic's attitude. Anything that happens to his body is not
happening to him; he is simply a witness. Even if death comes, he is simply
a witness.
Socrates was dying -- he had been given poison. He was a great mystic. His
disciples were surrounding him, and he went on saying to them, "My legs have
become numb." And he laughed, he said, "But I am just the same! My legs are
gone, but I am not reduced. My hands have become numb, but I am the same. My
consciousness is not reduced; on the contrary, it is more clear than it has
ever been. Soon my heart may stop. Soon I may not be able to talk to you,
but remember, only the body is dying, I am not."
This is the mystic's attitude, and this is the only healthy attitude. Every
human being should attain to it.
Question 3
BELOVED MASTER,
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGIOUSNESS? PLEASE
EXPLAIN.
Spirituality is something which accepts the duality between matter and
spirit. It is against materialism, it is a word that creates schizophrenic
people.
Religiousness is something far more beautiful. The word "religiousness"
comes from religio. It means putting things together. Spirituality means
splitting things into matter and spirit, Zorba and Buddha, body and soul.
That has been the way of all the religions up to now. But it is basically
wrong, because existence is not dual; it is oneness, it is one organic
whole.
The word "religiousness" simply means that you are feeling a togetherness
with body, with mind, with soul; there is no division. In this unity
blossoms religiousness. Religiousness is far higher than spirituality.
Spirituality can take you into the lower states of consciousness.
Religiousness can take you into the higher states of consciousness.
Do not divide. All divisions are false. And anything that divides, drop it.
Anything that unites, cherish it, nourish it, rejoice in it.
Question 4
BELOVED MASTER,
ARE YOU EVER BORED WITH US?
Sure -- but only when you ask such stupid questions!
Okay?
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