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We talk about the sufi meditation tradition  but we also have a few other web pages, the Sufi Meditation master and Sufis People are Sleeping or Are You Angry, Mr Sufi? OR generously, Sufi is a Feeling of the Heart explained by Osho. Or perhaps you like ZEN Zen Meditation Stories or Zen and the Stars or TAOISM KO HSUAN Stories of the Tao by Ko Hsuan and other Taoist Meditations. Or PATANJALI The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali One or The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Two or TANTRA Tantra and Tantric Meditations or even the Meditations of the Peace of the Guida Spiritual and now DON JUAN AND CARLOS CASTENADA The Teachings of Don Juan, and Don Juan, Castaneda and A Separate Reality AND  JESUS - WHEN JESUS WENT UNTO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.   OR THE UPANISHADS This Direct Knowing Natchiketa with the Lord of Death, Yama From the Katha Upanishad AND The Kundalini Energy of Prana and Apana - None Can Transcend It and Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching one

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VIGYAN BHAIRAV TANTRA VOL1

Doubt or faith, life or death; the bases of different paths

 

 I FEEL THAT NEITHER AM I THE FEELING TYPE ALTOGETHER, NOR AM I THE INTELLECTUAL TYPE. I AM A MIXED TYPE. SHOULD I DO TWO DIFFERENT KINDS OF TECHNIQUES ALTERNATIVELY? PLEASE GUIDE.

This is a significant question. Many things will have to be understood. One: whenever you feel that you are neither the intellectual type nor the emotional type, know well that you belong to the intellectual type, because confusion is part of it. The emotional type is never confused. One who belongs to the emotional type will not feel such confusion. Emotion is always total and whole, intellect is always fragmented, divided, confused. That is the very nature of intellect. Why? Because intellect depends on doubt and emotion depends on faith. Wherever doubt is, division will be, and doubt can never be total. How can it be? The very nature of doubt is doubting. It can NEVER be total! You cannot doubt a thing totally. If you doubt a thing totally, it becomes faith.

 Doubt is always confusion, and basically, when you doubt, you also doubt your doubt. You cannot be certain about it. A doubting mind cannot be even certain about doubt. So layers of confusion will be there, and each layer will be based on another layer of doubt and confusion.

 The intellectual type always feels this way. The feeling will always be there that "I am nowhere, I do not belong anywhere," or "Sometimes I am here and sometimes there, sometimes this and sometimes that." But the emotional type is at ease with himself. Because trust is the base, emotion is not divided, it is whole, individual. So if you have any doubt, if you cannot feel certain to what type you belong, know well you belong to the intellectual type. Then practise techniques which are meant for the intellectual type. If you do not feel any confusion, then only do you belong to the emotional type, the feeling type.

 For example, a Ramakrishna: he is a feeling type. You cannot create doubt in him; that is impossible, because a doubt can be created only when basically the doubt exists already. No one can create doubt in you if it is not already hidden there. Others can only help it to come out, they cannot create it. Neither can faith be created. That too others can help to manifest, to come out.

 Your basic type cannot be changed, so it is very essential to know your basic type - because if you are doing something which doesn't suit you, fit with you, you are wasting time and energy. And you will get more and more confused because of your wrong efforts. Neither can doubt be created in you, nor faith. You already have the seed of either this or that. If you have doubt, then it is better not to think of faith at all, because that will be a deception and hypocrisy. If you have doubt, do not be afraid -- Even doubt can lead to the divine. You have to use it.

 I will repeat, even doubt can lead to the divine - because if your doubt can destroy the divine, then it is stronger, more powerful than the divine. Even doubt can be used, it can be made a technique. But do not deceive. There are persons who go on teaching that if you have doubts, you can never reach to the divine. So what to do? Then you have to force it underneath, suppress it, hide it, create a false belief. But that will be only on the surface, it will never touch your soul. Deep down you will remain in doubt, and just on the surface a facade will be created of belief.

 That is the difference between faith and belief. Belief is always false. Faith is a quality; belief is a concept. Faith is the quality of your mind; belief is just acquired. So those who have doubt and are afraid of it, they cling to beliefs; they say, "I believe," but they have no faith. Deep down they know their doubt. They are always afraid of it. If you touch, criticize their belief, they will immediately get angry. Why? Why the anger, this irritation? They are not irritated by you, they are irritated by their own doubt which you are helping to come up. If a man of faith is there you can criticize him and he is not going to get angry, because you cannot destroy faith.

 A Ramakrishna is the type, or a Chaitanya or a Meera - they are feeling types. One of the most beautiful minds of Bengal, Keshav Chandra, went to meet Ramakrishna. He went not just to meet him, but to defeat him, because Ramakrishna was just an illiterate, not a scholar at all. And Keshav Chandra was one of the greatest minds ever born on Indian soil, one of the most keen, logical intellects. It was certain that Ramakrishna would be defeated. When Keshav Chandra came, all the intellectuals of Calcutta gathered at Dakshineshwar just to see Ramakrishna defeated. Keshav Chandra started arguing, but he must have felt very awkward because Ramakrishna enjoyed his arguments very much - in fact, too much. When he would propose some argument against God, Ramakrishna would start jumping, dancing.

 He felt very awkward, so he said, "What are you doing? You have to answer my arguments." Ramakrishna is reported to have said, "By my seeing you, my faith is strengthened. Such an intellect is impossible without God." That is how a feeling type looks at things. "And I predict," said Ramakrishna, "that sooner or later you will be a greater devotee than me because you have a greater mind. With such a mind, how can you fight the divine? With such a keen mind? Even a fool, an idiot like me, has reached. How can you remain without reaching?"

 He was not angry, not arguing, but he defeated Keshav Chandra. Keshav Chandra touched his feet and he said, "You are the first theist I have met with whom argument is futile. Looking at your eyes, looking at you and the way you have behaved with me, this is the first glimpse for me that the divine is possible. You are the proof without giving any proof." Ramakrishna became the proof.

 The intellectual type has to proceed through doubt. Do not force any belief upon yourself; that will be deceiving yourself. You cannot deceive anyone else, you can only deceive yourself. Do not force; be authentic. If doubt is your nature, then proceed through doubt. Doubt as much as possible, and do not choose any technique which is based on faith -- that is not for you. Choose some technique which is scientifically experimental. No need to believe.

 There are two types of methods. One is experimental. You are not told to believe, you are told to do it, and the consequence will be the belief, the faith. A scientist cannot believe. He can take a hypothesis to work on, to experiment with, and if the experiment comes out righ, if the experiment proves that the hypothesis is right, then he reaches to a conclusion. Faith is achieved through experiment. So there are techniques in these one hundred and twelve techniques which do not require any faith on your part.

 That is why Mahavir, Buddha, they are intellectual types, just as Ramakrishna and Chaitanya are feeling types. Because of this Buddha says that there is no need to believe in God; there is no God. He says, "Do what I say, do not believe in me. Experiment with what I say, and if your experience proves it right then you can believe it."

 Buddha says, "Do not believe in me, do not believe what I say. Do not believe something because I have said it. Experiment with it, go through it, and until you achieve your own conclusion remain in doubt. Your own experience will become your faith."

 Mahavir said, "No need to believe in anyone - not even in the master. Just do the technique."

 Science never says to believe. It says, do the experiment, go to the lab. This is for the intellectual type. Do not try faith before you do the experiment. You cannot try it -- you will falsify everything. Be real unto yourself. Remain real and authentic.

 

 Sometimes it has happened that even atheists have reached the divine because of finding their truth about themselves. Mahavir is an atheist; he doesn't believe in God. Buddha is an atheist; he doesn't believe in any God. So a miracle happened with Buddha. It is said about him that he was the most godless man and the most god-like. Both - godless and god-like. He was absolutely intellectual, but he reached because he never deceived himself, he went on doing experiments. For six years continuously he was doing this experiment and that, and he did not believe. Unless something were proven true by experience, he would not believe it. So he would do something, and if nothing happened he would leave it.

 One day he reached. Just by doubting and doubting and doubting, experimenting, a point came... a point came when nothing remained to be doubted. Without any object, the doubt fell. There was no object to doubt now. He had doubted everything, and even doubt became futile. Doubt dropped, and in that dropping he realized. Then he realized that the doubt was not the real thing: rather, the doubter was, and you cannot doubt the doubter. The doubter is there to say, "No, this is not right."

 It may not be right, it may be right, but who is it who is saying that this is not right or this is right? That source of saying is right, is true. You can say there is no God, but you cannot say, "I am not," because the moment you say "I am not," you have accepted yourself. Who is making this statement? You cannot deny yourself without at the same time recognizing yourself. That is impossible.

 Even to deny you have to be there. You cannot say to someone, some guest who is knocking on the door, that "I am not in the house."How can you say this? This is absurd,because your saying that "I am not in the house," proves that you are there.
 

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 Buddha doubted everything, but he could not doubt himself. When everything was doubted and became useless, ultimately he was thrown to himself. And there,doubt was impossible, so doubt fell. Suddenly he was awakened to his own reality, to his own source of consciousness, the very ground of consciousness. So he was godless, but he became god-like. Really, on this earth a more god-like person has never walked, but his instinct was intellectual.

 Both types of techniques are there. If you feel you are intellectual, confused, doubting, do not try faith techniques, they are not for you. Every technique is not for everyone. If you have faith, there is no need to try any other method - no need ! If you have faith, then try those methods which require faith as a presupposition. But be authentic; that is basic. That is a very essential thing to remember continuously.

 It is very easy to deceive - VERY easy to deceive, because we imitate. You may start imitating Ramakrishna without knowing that you are not of that type. If you imitate, you will be an imitation; nothing real will happen to you. You can imitate Buddha. This is happening every day because we are born into religions. Because of that, much nonsense continues. You cannot be born into a religion: you have to choose. Religion has nothing to do with blood, bones, birth - nothing!

 Someone is born a Buddhist. He may be a feeling type, but he will follow Buddha. Then his whole life will be wasted. Someone is born an intellectual type. He may be born a Mohammedan or he may be born into a devotional cult. His life will be wasted and he will become false. The whole world is irreligious because religion is foolishly associated with birth. There is no relationship at all. You have to choose consciously, because first you have to understand your type and then you have to choose. The world will be deeply religious the day we allow everyone to choose his religion, method, technique, path.

 But religion has become organizational, politically organizational. That is why the moment a child is born we force religion upon him, we condition him into a religion. The parents are afraid that he may move into another organization. Before he becomes conscious he must be destroyed, crippled, forced. Before he becomes conscious and can think about things, his mind must be conditioned so that he cannot think freely. You cannot think freely because whatsoever you think has been preconditioned.

 I was reading Bertrand Russell. He says, "Intellectually, I conceive of Buddha as being greater than Jesus. But deep down in my heart, that is impossible: Jesus is greater than Buddha. At the most, if I force myself, then I will put them parallel, equal. Intellectually, I feel Buddha is a giant. Jesus is nothing before him."

 Why this feeling? Because Bertrand Russell is himself the intellectual type, so Buddha has an appeal for him. Jesus has no appeal. But the mind has been conditioned into Christianity. This is not truth because these comparisons are meaningless, they simply show something about Bertrand Russell - neither about Buddha nor about Jesus, because no comparison is possible. For someone who is of the feeling type, Jesus will look greater than Buddha. But if he is a Buddhist, if he is born a Buddhist it will be difficult. His own mind will feel uneasy if he thinks that someone is greater than Buddha. It is difficult, impossible in a way, because whatsoever you think has been fed into you -- it has already been fed.in.

 Your mind is something like a computer. The information has been fed in, evaluation has been fed.in. You are already based on some non-sensical concepts, traditions. You cannot throw them away easily; that is why religion is just a word. Very few people can become religious, because very few people can rebel against their own conditioning. Only a revolutionary mind can become religious - a mind which can see a thing, the facts of it, and then decide what to do.

 But feel your type, try to feel your type. It is not difficult. The first thing: if you feel confused, you are the intellectual type. If you feel certain, trusting, then proceed with the different techniques which require trust as a basic thing. And secondly, remember, never do both the techniques. That will create more confusion in you. Nothing is wrong; both are right; Ramakrishna is right, Buddha is right. Remember one thing: in this world, many things can lead you to truth - many paths. There is no monopoly. Even contradictory paths, absolutely contradictory paths, can lead you to the same point.

 There is no "one" path. On the contrary, if you go deep and realize, you will come to know that there are as many paths as there are travelers, because each individual has to proceed from the point where he is standing already. He cannot use a ready-made path. Basically, you create your path by your movement. There is no ready-made path already there, there are no highways that are ready-made. But every religion tries to force on you this idea that the path is ready and you have just to travel over it. That is wrong. This inner search is more like the sky than the earth.

 A bird is flying: he will leave no footprints in the sky. The sky will remain a vacuum. The bird has flown -- he has not left any footprints. No bird can follow in his footprints; The sky is always empty. Another bird, any bird who has to fly, will create his own path.

 Consciousness is like a sky, not like the earth. A Mahavir moves, a Buddha moves, a Meera moves, a Mohammed moves... You can see their movement, you can see their achievement, but the moment they move, the path disappears. You cannot follow, dead-like, you cannot imitate. You have to find your own path.

 First think about your type and then choose methods. In these one hundred and twelve methods, many are for the intellectual type, many are for the emotional type. But do not think that because you are a mixed type you have to follow both. That will create more confusion, and you will be divided so deeply that you may even go mad, schizophrenic; you may become split. Do not do that.

 The second question:

 Question 2

 TO KNOW DEATH IS CERTAIN,YOU SAID YESTERDAY. THIS SEEMS TO BE THE APPROACH OF BUDDHA, WHO WAS LIFE-NEGATIVE. BUT TANTRA'S APPROACH IS LIFE AFFIRMATIVE, NOT NEGATIVE, SO HOW CAN THIS DEATH ORIENTATION BE USED IN TANTRA?

 Buddha is not really life-negative. He appears so: he appears to be live-negative because he focuses on death. To us he appears to be in love with death, but he is not. On the contrary, he is in love with eternal life. To find that life which is deathless, he focuses on death. Death is not his love, he has to focus on death just to find something which is beyond death. And Buddha says that if there is nothing beyond death then life is futile -- but only then is life futile. He never says life is futile,.he says that if nothing is beyond death, then life is futile. And your life is futile, he says, because your life is not beyond death. Whatsoever you think is your life is just a part of death. You are fooled by that. You think it is life and it is nothing but death on its way.

 A man is born -- he is on his way to die. Whatsoever he becomes, whatsoever he achieves, possesses, nothing will help: he is moving toward death. This so-called life is moving toward death. How can we call it life? That is Buddha's question. A life which moves toward death, how call it life? Life which implies death inevitably is just hidden death, not life; it is gradual death. By and by you are dying, and you go on thinking that you are living.

 Right now you feel you are living, but you are dying. Every moment you are losing life and gaining death. A tree is known by its fruits, Buddha says, so your tree of life cannot be called life because death is the fruit. A tree is known by its fruit, and if on your tree of life only fruits of death come, then you were deceived by the tree. And another thing: if a tree gives a particular fruit, it shows that that particular fruit was the seed of the tree; otherwise that particular fruit could not come out of the tree. So if life gives the fruit of death, death must have been the seed.

 Let us understand this. You are born, and you think that birth is the beginning -- it is not. Before this birth, you died in another life. That death was the seed of this birth, and then again, death will become the fruit. And that fruit will become the seed for another birth.

 Birth leads to death, death precedes birth. So if you want to see life as it really is, it is rounded on both the sides by death. Death is the beginning and death is again the end, and life is just the illusion in between. You feel alive between two deaths; the passage joining one death to another you call life. Buddha says this is not life. This life is DUKKHA - misery. This life is death. That is why he appears to us who are deeply life-hypnotized, obsessed about being alive in any way, as life-negating. To us, just to be alive seems to be the end. We are so much afraid of death that Buddha appears in love with death, and that looks abnormal. He seems to be suicidal. This is what many have criticized Buddha for.

 Albert Schweitzer has criticized Buddha because he feels that Buddha is obsessed with death. He is not obsessed with death: we are obsessed with life. He is simply analyzing things, finding out what are the facts. And the deeper you go, the more you will find he is right. Your life is just false, fake, overtaken by death, just a clothing -- inside there is death. Buddha focuses on death because he says, "If I can find out what death is, only then can I find out what life is. And if I can know what both death and life are, then there is a possibility that I may transcend both and know something which is beyond birth and death, beyond both." He is not negative, not life-denying, but he appears so.

 Tantra appears life-affirmative, but that again is our interpretation. Neither is Buddha life-denying, nor is tantra life-affirmative; the source is the same. Buddha focuses on death, tantra focuses on life. And both are one, so wherever you want to start, start. But go so deeply that you come to know the other also.
 

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 Buddha focuses on the end - death. Tantra focuses on the beginning-life. That is why Buddha seems to be too much in love with death and tantra seems to be too much in love with sex, love, body, life. In the end there is death and in the beginning there is sex. Because tantra focuses itself on the beginning, sex becomes very important. So how to go deep and know what sex is, how to reveal the mystery of love, how to penetrate into the beginning, into the seed, so that you can go beyond -- that is tantra's approach.

 Buddha focuses on death, and he says to meditate deeply on death, move into it and know the whole reality of it. Both are two ends of the same thing. Sex is death, and death is very sexual. It will be difficult to understand.

 There are many insects which die with their first intercourse. The first sex act, and death occurs. There is a species of spider in Africa in which the male dies in copulation. He cannot come down from the copulation; he is just on the female, and he dies there. The first copulation becomes death, and it is very horrible. At the moment of ejaculation he dies. Actually, he is not even really dead: he is still in the pangs of death. The moment the spider, the male spider, ejaculates, death starts and the female starts eating him. He never dismounts. The female starts eating him, and by the time the sexual act is finished, he is half eaten.

 Sex and death are so interconnected. Because of this, man became afraid of sex. Those who want to live more, who are fascinated with long life, they will be always afraid of sex, and those who think that they can become immortal, BRAHMACHARYA celibacy will be their cult. No one has yet been immortal and no one can be because you are born out of sex. If you were born out of BRAHMACHARYA, then it could be possible. If your father and mother were celibates, then, then only could you be immortal.

 Sex has already entered with your birth. Whether you go into sex or not makes no difference: you cannot escape death. Your very being starts with sex, and sex is the beginning of death. Because of this Christians say Jesus was born from a virgin mother. Just to say that he is no mortal, no ordinary mortal, they say he was born to a virgin mother. "He is no ordinary mortal"... just to say this, just to say that death has no power over him, they had to create this myth.

 This is a part of a long myth. If he was born out of sex, then death would have its power over him. Then he could not escape death, as with sex, death enters. So they say that he was born without any sex act; he was not a by-productof sex. They say that because he was the son of a virgin mother, he could revive again - resurrect. They crucified him, but they could not kill him. He remained alive because he was not a by-product of sex. They could not kill him. If really Jesus was born out of a virgin mother, it is impossible to kill him. It is impossible to kill him! Death is impossible! When the beginning is not, how can the end be? If he was not born out of a virgin mother, then death will be the certain, inevitable end.

 So the whole myth has to be maintained. If you say that he was not born out of a virgin mother, then the second part of the myth, resurrection, becomes false. If you say he resurrected, that he denied death, escaped death, that death could not kill him, that he could not be crucified really, that those who were crucifying him were deceived, that he was alive and he remained alive, then you have to maintain the first part of the myth.

 I am not saying anything for or against, I am simply saying that the WHOLE myth has to be maintained, one part only cannot be maintained. If sex is there before birth, then death will be there. Because of this deep association, many times many societies have become afraid of sex. That fear is of death. Even if you accept sex, a certain fear remains there. Even if you move into sex, a certain fear remains there. No one allows himself a total let-go in it. The fear is there, you are on guard. You cannot go into it totally; you cannot let yourself go completely because that let-go is just like death.

 Neither is tantra for your idea of life, nor is Buddha against the real life. Tantra starts from one part -- the beginning; Buddha starts with the end. And tantra is more scientific than Buddha, because it is always good to begin at the beginning. You are already born; death is far away. Birth has occurred -- you can work on it more deeply -- death has to occur. It is still in the imagination; it is not a reality to you. And when you see someone die, you never see death. You see someone dying, never the death -- the process which happens to him inside. You cannot see it; it is invisible, it is individual. And the individual himself cannot say anything because the moment he goes through the process he is no more. He cannot come back, he cannot step back and tell what has happened.

 So whatsoever is known about death is just inference. No one knows anything about death actually. Unless you can remember your past lives, you cannot actually know anything about death. You have died many times; that is why Buddha had to revive many techniques about remembering past lives. Because your death of this life is in the future, how can you concentrate on it? How can you meditate on it? It has not happened yet. It is very vague, dark, unknown. What can you do? You can only think about it, but that thinking will also be borrowed. You will be repeating what others have said. Someone has said something about death, and you will be repeating it. How can you meditate on death? You can see others dying, but that is not a real entry into it. You are just an outsider.

 It is just as if someone is eating a sweet... You look at him, but how can you feel what is happening to him, what taste, what sweetness, what fragrance is happening to him? What is going on in him you cannot know. You can just look at his mouth, his behavior, or you can see the expression on his face  -- but this is all inference, not actual experience.

 You cannot know what is happening to him unless he says something, but whatsoever he says will be words to you, and again not an experience. Buddha talked about his past deaths, but no one believed him. If I tell you something about my past deaths, deep down you will not believe it. How can you believe it? You do not have any access to the reality of it. You are just closed at this birth, and the death of this life has not come yet. It always happens to others; it has not happened to you yet.

 It is difficult to meditate on death. As a base, you will have to move into past lives, you will have to go digging into past memories. Buddha, Mahavir, they both used the technique of JAATI SMARAN -- the technique of going into past lives. Only then can you meditate on death.

 Tantra is more scientific. It starts with life, with birth, with sex, which is a fact to you. Death is still a fiction. But remember, the end of both is the same. They both are in search of eternal life -- life which is deathless. Either transcend the beginning or transcend the end, either jump from one pole or from another. And remember, you can jump out of it only from a pole, you cannot jump from the middle.

 If I want to jump out of this room, either I have to move to this side to the extreme, or to that side to the extreme. I cannot jump out from the middle of the room, because jumping is possible only from the extreme pole. And there are two extreme poles in life - birth and death. Tantra starts from birth. It is more scientific, more real. You are already in it, so you can meditate upon it. Sex is a fact, so you can meditate upon it: you can move deep within it.

 Death is not a fact. A very rare mind is needed to conceive of death; a very keen intellect is needed to penetrate into the future. Rarely, it happens that a buddha will conceive of death so deeply that the future becomes the present. But it is always for rare individuals.

 Tantra can be used by anyone who has any interest, who has any desire to search in order to know what real life is. But tantra also uses death just to help you move inwards - not for you to meditate on it, not for you to jump out of it, but to help you move inwards.

 Buddha also talked about birth just to make it a part of the meditation on death. The other part can be used as a help, but is not the center. Tantra says, if you can think about death, your life will take a different meaning, shape and significance. Your mind will start thinking in new dimensions which without death would be difficult or even impossible. The moment you begin to feel that this life is going to end in death, death becomes a certainty and you cannot cling to this life: mind starts moving beyond. That is what I was saying yesterday.

 If you think about just this life, your mind will go outwards: it will go out and out and out to the objects. If you begin to look and see that death is hidden everywhere, then you cannot cling to objects. Your mind will start moving inwards.

 Just the other day a young girl came to me. She is an Indian girl who fell in love with an American boy. But after she fell in love and they were just thinking and planning to get married, the boy fell ill and it was discovered, diagnosed, that he had a certain type of cancer that is incurable. Death was certain. He could be alive two or three or four years at the most. The boy tried to persuade the girl not to marry him now. He said, "Death is so certain, why waste your life with me?"

 But the more he insisted -- this is how the mind functions -- the more the girl became adamant about wanting to marry him. This is how mind works -- in paradoxes. If I would have been in the place of that boy, I would have insisted on marrying;then the girl would have escaped. Then there was no possibility of marriage. Then I would not have seen that girl again. But the boy insisted - out of his love, but out of a foolish mind, without knowing how mind functions -- that she should not marry him. Anyone would have done the same. And because he was insisting, the girl felt it to be a matter of conscience: she insisted to marry.

 Then they got married. Now, after marriage, the girl is surrounded constantly by death. She is sad; she cannot love the boy. It is easy to die for anyone,.it is very difficult to live. It is very easy to die... to be a martyr is such an easy thing. It is such an easy thing to be a martyr because it is a momentary thing: you can do it in a single moment.

 If you love me and I say, "Jump out of this building," you can jump because you feel you love me. But if I say, "Okay, now live with me for thirty years," it is very difficult - VERY difficult!

 You can become a martyr in a single moment. To die for someone, for something, is the easiest thing in the world; to live for something is the most arduous and difficult thing. She became a martyr, but now she has to live enclosed in death's presence. She cannot love. She cannot see the face of her husband, because the moment she sees it the cancer is there, the death is there just by the corner. Any moment it can happen, so she is in constant agony.

 What has happened? Death has become a certainty. Now life has no interest for her, everything has dropped and has become death. She came from America just to meet me . She wants to meditate because life seems futile. Life has become equivalent to cancer, so now she has come here to ask me, "Teach me meditation. How can I move beyond life?" Unless life becomes futile you never think about moving beyond it.

 I told her that apparently her marriage looks very unfortunate, but it may prove very fortunate. Everyone's husband is going to die, but it is not certain. Everybody's wife is going to die, but it is not certain. Death is certain, only the date is not certain. And who knows, even the date may be certain -- you do not know. That is why ignorance is very blissful. She could have loved that boy if still they were ignorant; apparently nothing would be wrong. But now love has become impossible, life has become impossible. Death is always there, constantly present between the two of Them.

 So I asked her, "Why are you not loving him more because he is going to die? Love him more."

 She said, "How can I love? We are always three; the privacy is lost. I am there and my husband is there, and between we two, Death. There is no privacy left."

 Death is too much; it is impossible to live with. It can become a turning. If you can become aware of death, says tantra, use it as a turning inwards. No need to go into details about death, no need to go on contemplating about it. Do not make it an obsession. Just the awareness that death is there will help you to move inwards, to be meditative.

 The third question :

 Question 3

 HOW CAN THE MIND BE TRANSCENDED AND TRANSFORMED ONLY BY BRINGING THE BODY TO A DEATH-LIKE STATE?

 The mind is constantly active. While you are active meditation is impossible, because meditation means a deep inactivity. You can know yourself only when everything has become still, silent and quiet. Only then, in that silence, do you happen to encounter yourself. Otherwise, in activity you are so much occupied with something or other, you cannot feel your own presence. You go on forgetting yourself. Continuously, with this or that object, you go on forgetting yourself.

 Activity means being related with something outside. You are active because you are related with something outside, doing something outside. Inactivity means you have returned home; you are not doing anything. In Greek language, leisure is called schole. The English word school comes from this Greek word; School means leisure. You can learn something only when you are at leisure; learning happens in leisure. If you are active, doing this and that, you cannot learn.

 Schools were for the leisure class - those who could afford leisure. Their children were sent to schools, to places of leisure. They were not to do anything but learn; they were allowed total inactivity as far as the world was concerned. They were freed from all worldly activity, and then they could learn.

 The phenomenon is similar if you want to learn about your own presence: you will have to be completely inactive - COMPLETELY inactive, just being, not doing anything. All the ripples must cease, all activity must evaporate. You are, simply. YOU ARE! In that moment, for the first time you become aware of your own presence. Why? Because the presence is so subtle. Occupied with a gross object, engaged with gross activity, you cannot become aware of such a subtle presence. It is a very silent music, your presence. And you are so much filled with noise ,and every type of noise is occupying you, that you cannot hear that still, small voice within.

 Cease being engaged in outward noises and activities. Then that still, small voice, for the first time is heard; that soundless sound, that soundless music is felt. You enter the subtle and leave the gross. Activity is gross; inactivity is subtle. And your presence is the most subtle thing in the world. To feel that, you will have to cease; you will have to be absent from everywhere so that your total presence comes in and you can encounter yourself. That is why in many techniques it is suggested to make your body as if it is dead. It means simply being inactive like a dead man.

 While you are meditating, let your body enter death. It will be imagination, but even that will help. Do not ask how imagination can help. Imagination has its own function. For example, now scientific experiments are done... You sit down, there is a doctor, and he is observing your pulse rate. Inside, you just start being angry; you imagine that you are fighting, angry -- your pulse rate will go higher.

 Inside, just imagine you are dying, that you are just going to die. Become silent and feel death descending. Your pulse rate will come down. The pulse rate is a physical thing, and you were just imagining. Imagination is not unreal; it is also real. If you can really imagine, even real death can occur. If you can really imagine, you can affect physical things.

 You might have observed some display of hypnosis. Or if not, you can do this easily at home; it is not difficult, it is very easy. Use your child as the medium. If the child is a girl, it is better than using a boy, because a boy is more doubting than a girl, and a boy is always in a fighting mood instead of a cooperative mood. A boy means that - a fighting mood.

 Cooperation is needed. Just tell the child to relax, and go on suggesting, "You are going into a deep trance, going into a deep trance, going into a deep trance, falling asleep. Your eyelids are becoming heavy, heavy, heavier..." And use a monotonous voice: "Heavier, heavier, heavier..." Let your voice be monotonous, as if you are also becoming sleepy.

 Within five minutes the child will be fast asleep. This is not ordinary sleep, this is a hypnotic trance. It is basically, qualitatively different from sleep, because now the child can hear only your voice. There is nothing else that he or she can hear. If someone else talks, the child is deaf. If you talk -- the person who has hypnotized him -- he can still hear. he will follow your orders.

 Try to do some experiments. Say to the child, "This is a burning hot coal that I am putting in your hand. You will be burned." Put any ordinary thing in the child's hand - a piece of stone that is cold, with nothing hot about it. The child will throw it immediately because the mind has the suggestion that it is a burning coal, hot, and that his or her hand is going to be burned. He will throw it, he will scream as if he has touched something hot.

 But a miracle happens. You will come to know that his hand is really burned. What is happening? There was no possibility of being burned by a cold stone, but the child is burned exactly as if there was a burning coal put in his hand. It was just imagination. That is why those who have penetrated the human mind, they say that imagination is as real a fact as anything. Imagination is not JUST imagination, because it results in actual fact.

 Do this experiment... Fall down on the ground, lie still and feel you are going to die. The body is becoming dead. By and by you will feel a heaviness coming over the body. The whole body will become a dead weight, a lead weight. Tell yourself that "Even if I want to remove my hand from the position where it is, I cannot move it. "Then try to remove it, and you will not be able to do so. Now the imagination is working.

 In this state where you feel the body has become a dead weight, you can cut yourself off from the world of activity easily. That is why this is suggested. You can now become inactive because you are dead. Now you can feel that everything has died and the bridge from you to the world is broken. The body is the bridge. If the body is dead, you cannot do anything. Can you do anything without the body? You cannot do anything without the body.

 Any activity is through the body. Mind can think about it but cannot do it. You have become impotent; you cannot do anything. You are inside, the world is outside. the vehicle is dead and the bridge is broken. In this state of the body being dead and the bridge being broken, your energy will start moving inwards, because there is no way to move out. The outer way is closed and blocked, so now you move inwards. See yourself standing at the heart center; look within at the details of the body. You will feel very strange when for the first time you can look from within your own body.

 Tantra, yoga, ayurveda, all the old physiologies, all the old physiological doctrines, their work was revealed and made known through such inner meditative techniques. Modern physiology is known through dissection, but ancient physiology was known through meditation, not dissection. And now there is a school, a school of very avant-garde medical thinkers who say that when you dissect a body and come to know something, you come to know something which is dead - and whatsoever is inferred from a dead part is irrelevant to a live body.

 They may be right. If you take my blood out and then examine it, you are examining dead blood. It is not the same blood which was in me. Outwardly it is the same, but in me it was a live process, a live current, alive, part of a mechanism, of an organic whole. Now it is dead. It is as if you pull my eyes out and then examine them. When they were with me I was behind them and in them. Now they are dead stones, and whatsoever you come to know about those eyes is not about my eyes, because the basic, essential part is missing: I am not there.

 Those eyes were part of a big whole. Their whole quality consisted in being part of a big whole. Now they are independent, not part of anything. The pattern is lost, the live contact is lost. All the traditions of yoga and tantra say that unless you can come to know the living body, your knowledge is false. But how to come to know the living body? There is only one way: you enter into yourself, and move within to see the details of the body. A different world was revealed through these techniques, an alive world.

 So the first thing: be centered at the heart, and look around at your body, move. Two things will happen. One: you will not feel now that you are the body -- you cannot feel it. You are the observer, one who is aware, alert, looking at, not being looked at. For the first time the body will become just a clothing; you will be different from it. And the second thing: immediately you will feel, "I cannot die."

 This will seem strange -- using a method, an imaginary method of death, and then coming to the deathless point. You will come to know suddenly, "I cannot die." You have seen others who have died. What happened to them? Their bodies became dead; that is why you inferred that they were dead. Now you can see that the whole body is lying dead, and you are alive.

 So bodily death is not your death. The body dies, and you move on. And if you persist in this technique, the time is not very far away when you can come out of your body and look at your body from without, at your body lying dead just before you. It is not very difficult. Once you experience this, you will never be the same person again. You will be reborn; you will become DWIJ - twice born. Now a new life starts.

 I was telling you yesterday about one astrologer who had promised to work on my life's birth chart. He died before he had done it, so his son had to prepare the chart, but he was also puzzled. He said, "It is almost certain that this child is going to die at the age of twenty-one. Every seven years he will have to face death." So my parents, my family, were always worried about my death. Whenever I would come to the end of a seven-year cycle, they would become afraid. And he was right. At the age of seven I survived, but I had a deep experience of death - not of my own, but of the death of my maternal grandfather. And I was so much attached to him that his death appeared to be my own death.

 In my own childish way I imitated his death. I would not eat for three days continuously, would not drink water, because I felt that if I did so it would be a betrayal. I loved him so much, he loved me so much, that when he was alive I was never allowed to go to my parents. I was with my maternal grandfather. He said, "When I die, only then can you go." He lived in a very small village, so I couldn't go to any school because there was no school. He would never leave me, but then the time came when he died. He was part and parcel of me. I had grown with his presence, his love.

 When he died I felt that it would be a betrayal to eat. Now I didn't want to live. It was childish, but through it something very deep happened. For three days I remained lying down: I would not come out of the bed. I said, "Now that he is dead, I do not want to live." I survived, but those three days became a death experience. I died in a way, and I came to realize -- now I can tell about it, though at that time it was just a vague experience -- I came to feel that death is impossible. This was a feeling.

 

 Then at the age of fourteen, my family again became disturbed that I would die. I survived, but then I again tried it consciously. I said to them, "If death is going to occur as the astrologer has said, then it is better to be prepared. And why give a chance to death? Why should I not go and meet it half way? If I am going to die, then it is better to die consciously."

 So I took leave from my school for seven days. I went to my principal and I told him, "I am going to die." He said, "What nonsense you are talking! Are you committing suicide? What do you mean you are going to die?"

 I told him about the astrologer's prediction that the possibility of death would confront me every seven years. I told him, "I am going into retreat for seven days to wait for death. If death comes, it is good to meet it consciously so that it becomes an experience."

 I went to a temple just outside of my village. I arranged with the priest that he should not disturb me. It was a very lonely, unvisited temple - old, in ruins. No one ever came to it. So I told him, "I will remain in the temple. You just give me once a day something to eat and something to drink, and the whole day I will be lying there waiting for death."

 For seven days I waited. Those seven days became a beautiful experience. Death never came, but on my part I tried in every way to be dead. Strange, weird feelings happened. Many things happened, but the basic note was this - that if you are feeling you are going to die, you become calm and silent. Nothing creates any worry then because all worries are concerned with life. Life is the basis of all worries. When you are going to die anyway one day, why worry?

 I was lying there. On the third or fourth day a snake entered the temple. It was in view, I was seeing the snake, but there was no fear. Suddenly I felt very strange. The snake was coming nearer and nearer, and I felt very strange. There was no fear, so I thought, "When death is coming, it may be coming through this snake, so why be afraid? Wait!"

 The snake crossed over me and went away. Fear had disappeared. If you accept death, there is no fear. If you cling to life, then every fear is there.

 Many times flies came around me. They would fly around, they would creep over me, on my face. Sometimes I felt irritated and would have liked to throw them off, but then I thought, "What is the use? Sooner or later I am going to die, and then no one will be here to protect the body. So let them have their way."

 The moment I decided to let them have their way, the irritation disappeared. They were still on the body, but it was as if I was not concerned. They were as if moving, as if creeping on someone else's body. There was a distance immediately. If you accept death, a distance is created. Life moves far away with all its worries, irritations, everything. I died in a way, but I came to know that something deathless is there. Once you accept death totally, you become aware of it.

 Then again at the age of twenty-one, my family was waiting. So I told them, "Why do you go on waiting? Do not wait. Now I am not going to die."

 Physically, someday I will die, of course. However, this prediction of the astrologer helped me very much because he made me aware very early on about death. Continuously, I could meditate and could accept that it was coming.

 Death can be used for deep meditation because then you become inactive. Energy is released from the world; it can move inwards. That is why a death-like posture is suggested. Use life, use death, for discovering that which is beyond both