Prabhaker

This too is impossible because what has become conscious in man cannot become unconscious again. We seek this very unconsciousness when we get drunk. The search for intoxicants is an indication of our desire to become animals. Only when he is thoroughly drunk and unconscious is man in conformity with nature, with the animal.

Instinct is the world of the animals–everything is instinct. Even if sometimes you see indications of other things, it is your projection. For example, you can see love in animals–the mother looking after her kids lovingly, caringly–and you can think that it is not just instinct, it is something higher, not just biological. But it is not higher, it is simply biological. The mother is doing it like a robot in the hands of nature. She is helpless–she has to do it. Becoming an animal means complete surrender to unconscious instincts.

Momentary despair doesn't mean that overall you are miserable person, I will like to quote from Leo Gura's post "All psychedelics do is reflect your own mind back at you. They are a mirror. " If you don't escape, if you allow the suffering to be there, if you are ready to face it, if you are not trying somehow to forget it, then you are different.I don't mean become a masochist; I don't mean create suffering for yourself and enjoy it. I don't mean: go on, fall down from a cliff, have fractures and then enjoy it- no. Suffering is already there; life by its very nature creates suffering. When you watch suffering suddenly you are not the sufferer. Through suffering you become aware of the opposite pole, the blissful inner being. You return to the source, get centered. By escaping from suffering using psychedelics or drug or by any other means may give you a temporary relief, but you will miss an opportunity for spiritual growth. When you start growing, when you decide to grow, you have to face all the pains that you have repressed. You cannot just bypass them.

It can be 'sound of silence' !

This journey is long and many times one starts losing hope. Those are the moments when patience will be needed. Patience is nothing but a fragrance of trust. The real patience is positive, active, creative. The real patience is not just a laziness. It is radiant with hope. It is throbbing with life and zest and enthusiasm. The mind will try to frustrate. The mind will bring a feeling of hopelessness, because once a person becomes hopeless all search is lost. Then he simply leads a routine life, a mundane, mediocre life.

Experience of one person can't be more relevant than years of research done previously. The mind can project anything it likes to project - even an unconscious desire of Samadhi! So whatsoever you have known about Samadhi and have read about it, will be projected through the chemical help, but it is not a spiritual revelation.

No, but it is Aldous Huxley's finding. That’s why Aldous Huxley wrote a book and named it 'Heaven and Hell'.

When walking on the street, walk with awareness. It is difficult and you go on forgetting, but don’t be afraid. Whenever you remember again, be alert. Take every step with full alertness, knowingly, remaining with the step, not allowing the mind to move somewhere else. While eating, eat; chew with awareness. Whatsoever you are doing, don’t do it mechanically – and that is different. And when I say that it can be felt only, the meaning is this: for example, I can raise my hand mechanically, but then I can also raise my hand with full alertness. My mind is conscious that my hand is being raised. Do it, try it – once mechanically and then with alertness. You will feel the change. Walk with alertness, and you walk differently; a different grace comes to your walking. You move more slowly, more beautifully. If you walk mechanically – only because you know how to walk and there is no need to be alert, then the walking is ugly, there is no grace in it. Do whatsoever you are doing with alertness, and feel the difference.

No society wants you to become wise: it is against the investment of all societies. If people are wise they cannot be exploited. If they are intelligent they cannot be subjugated, they cannot be forced in a mechanical life, to live like robots. They will assert their individuality. They will have the fragrance of rebellion around them. They will like to live in freedom. Freedom comes with wisdom, intrinsically. They are inseparable, and no society wants people to be free. The communist society, the fascist society, the capitalist society, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christian — no society — would like people to use their own intelligence because the moment they start using their intelligence they become dangerous — dangerous to the establishment, dangerous to the people who are in power, dangerous to the ‘haves’; dangerous to all kinds of oppression, exploitation, suppression; dangerous to the churches, dangerous to the states, dangerous to the nations. In fact, a wise man is afire, alive, aflame. But he cannot sell his life, he cannot serve them. He would like rather to die than to be enslaved.

Scientifically we are in the 21 century, psychologically we are lagging far behind. And this is one of the causes of misery on the earth, of poverty on the earth, of illness on the earth, of sadness. This whole sadness and misery can disappear once we decide to be contemporary as far as psychology is concerned; in fact, psychology should be a littleahead of scientific technology. We have to be psychologically ahead of the time, psychologically far more developed than the scientific technology is. Only then can you use it, otherwise you are bound to misuse it. Now science has made possible everything which can transform the earth into a paradise. There is no need to look for a paradise in the afterlife – it can happen now and here. And for the first time it is possible:

Just because no one is ever really killed doesn't mean that the desire to kill is not bad. Death is not there, but the desire for violence, the motivation for violence, the violent state of mind is there. One who has a desire for violence, one who takes an interest in killing, one who feels happy killing other person, one who takes credit for killing someone - even though no one ever actually dies, the idea that he killed someone, his taking pleasure in killing, his mental belief that killing is possible - all of this is evil, sinful. The sin is not in occurrence of violence. The sin is in the act of committing violence. The occurrence of violence is impossible, but the act of violence is possible. When a person is committing an act of violence, two things are involved; Krishna says that the occurrence of violence is impossible, but a psychological state of violence is possible. When Hitler is killing people, he is not in the same state of mind as Krishna is. Hitler enjoys killing; he delights in destroying, in exterminating. Whether anything actually gets destroyed is another matter, but Hitler has a passion of killing. This passion for killing is violence.

Meditation and martial arts can go together, I have doubts about lifting weights.

It depends on the person’s mind – psychedelic only magnifies, multiplies. If you are a miserable person, psychedelic will make you a million times more miserable. If you are a man of joy, psychedelic will magnify your joy a thousand times.

Ego is the false substitute that you have created for the true self. Enlightenment happens only when ego is no more.

THE EXPERIENCE OF TRUTH is neither a thought nor a feeling. It is a vibrating and a throbbing of all the vital components of your entire being. It is not in you; you are in it. It is your whole being, not just an experience that is happening to you. It is in you yourself, but it is larger than you because the whole of existence is included in it as well. THERE IS A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE between the experience of truth and an interpretation of truth. When you try to interpret truth you stand outside; when you experience truth you are completely inside it, in total communion with it. This is why it is impossible for those who have had the experience of truth to define it. Truth simply exists, and what is just is. Truth cannot be thought about or pondered over but it can be lived. All thought and deliberation are obstacles to being in truth.

In Western languages MAYA has been translated very wrongly, and it gives the feeling in Western terms that "illusion" means "unreal." It does not! "Illusion" means the inability to decide whether the thing is real or unreal. This confusion is MAYA. Why do we call the world illusory? Let me remind you again: by ‘illusory’ we don’t mean unreal, we mean temporarily real, only for the time being real. Why do we call the outer world unreal? Because it brings only misery and it gives you only projections, ambitions, desires; it never allows you to be really happy, authentically happy. It gives you hope but never fulfils it. It leads you on many journeys but the goal never arrives, hence it is called MAYA, illusion. It deceives you, it is a mirage — it APPEARS to be there, but when you reach there you don’t find anything; and by the time you reach there, your desires are being projected further ahead. It is like the horizon: you go towards it, it goes on receding. You never arrive — you cannot arrive, by its very nature it is not possible, it only appears — it is not there.

Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the transcendence; it is going beyond the mind. Mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. Awareness means the state of no mind.

The ego cannot be enlightened, just as darkness can not become light. It is part of your nonaliveness or partial aliveness, part of your unconsciousness.

A posture should be such that you can forget your body. If a you cannot sit on the floor straight, comfortably, and you force yourself, and it becomes uncomfortable and painful, then it is better to sit straight on a chair and the whole body relaxed -- as if the whole body is hanging on the backbone. But let the back of the chair be straight.

A posture should be such that you can forget your body. If a seeker cannot sit on the floor straight, comfortably, and he has to force himself, and it becomes uncomfortable and painful, then it is better to sit straight on a chair and the whole body relaxed -- as if the whole body is hanging on the backbone. But let the back of the chair be straight. You must have seen pictures and statues of ancient Egyptian kings and queens.

@BeginnerActualizer The posture should be steady and should be very, very blissful, comfortable. So never try to distort your body, and never try to achieve postures which are uncomfortable. If you can be steady and comfortable in a chair, it is perfectly okay — no need to try a lotus posture and force your body unnecessarily. A posture should be such that you can forget your body.

The lotus posture was chosen for many reasons. If one can manage it without torturing himself, then it is the best, but it is not a necessity. It is better to follow the body and its wisdom: use a chair. The whole thing is you should be comfortable so that the body does not draw your attention. If you are accustomed to sitting on a chair, you can find a way, a posture, a chair made in a certain way that helps your body to relax all its tensions. It does not matter whether you are sitting in the chair or in the lotus posture or lying down on the bed. Sitting is preferable because it will prevent you from falling asleep.

But why does this question arise? This question arises for so many reasons. One, you are not really working. You are just deceiving yourself. You are playing tricks with yourself. You are less concerned with what you are doing and more concerned with what is happening. If you are really doing it, you can leave the result to existence. But our minds are such that we are less concerned with the cause and more concerned with the effect Even if you are following one technique of meditation, you are not on the same road as someone else who is doing the same technique; you cannot be. There is no public path. Every path is individual and personal. So no one’s experiences on the path will be helpful to you; rather, they may be damaging. Someone may be seeing something on his path. If he says to you that this is the sign of progress, you may not meet the same sign on your path. The same trees may not be on your path; the same stones may not be on your path. So do not be a victim of all this nonsense. Only certain inner feelings are relevant. For example, if you are progressing, then certain things will begin to happen spontaneously. One, you will feel more and more contentment. Meditation is not just a certain thing which you do for one hour and forget. Really, the whole of life has to be meditative. Only then will you begin to feel things. And when I say that the whole life is to be meditative, I do not mean to go and close your eyes for twenty-four hours and sit and meditate – no! Wherever you are you can be sensitive and that sensitivity will pay. Then there will be no need to ask, 'Am I progressing or not?' Only with this capacity of being aware of all things happening around you will you develop the capacity to feel what is happening within.

You can't meditate and 'wait for magic' simultaneously ! People who are anxious for results often miss the meditation.

No, it is not possible to feel tired or even exhausted after meditating. All techniques and methods create space for meditation. Meditation is not a technique or method. Meditation is not a science, it is not an art, it is a knack - just that way. All that you need is a little patience. It is not a doing, it is a non-doing. you are simply rejoicing in rest. How can it be tiring?