Prabhaker

I agree, but topic was about 'Being Aware Of Your True Self'. Unless you are tremendously intelligent or tremendously rich, your journey towards being aware of your 'true self' will be very difficult at younger age.

@LRyan In ancient India the wise people decided that by the time one is fifty-one should start preparing for 'vanprashtha'. His face should be now towards the mountains, towards the forest -- that is the meaning of 'vanprashtha'. He is still in the world, but now his whole consciousness has turned and he is getting ready to move into the deep forest to be alone. The days of meditation have come. According to yoga and tantra, life can be divided into seven year fragments. A child enters the first change when he is seven. Then his childhood is over. A great change. When he is fourteen sex enters into life. Another great change. Now he will have a different outlook, different desires. At twenty-one ambition enters into life. He becomes more political, rebellious, protesting, fighting -- ready to fight with anybody. He becomes a revolutionary. At twenty-eight he starts settling, he becomes more interested in comfort, a bank balance, a good salary, a good home, a wife, a child, a TV, a car -- things like that. He starts becoming more square. After twenty-eight a man becomes a house-holder. By the age of thirty-five a man becomes almost established -- whatsoever has happened he becomes established. If he has succeeded he becomes established in his success; if he has failed he becomes established in his failure. Then he knows that now nothing can be done; whatsoever has happened has happened. Now he is not in any way ready to fight; he relaxes. By the age of forty-two he starts becoming a little bit aware.... What is he doing here, earning money, power, prestige? Death is coming. Death knocks at the door for the first time near about forty-two -- that is the age when you have heart attacks and blood pressure and cancer and things like that. That is the first knock. Beware of the age forty-two, it is the most dangerous age. Then you start feeling a little shaky, then you start feeling a little trembling inside, you are no longer as certain as you used to be. You lose confidence. You have lived, you have known money, you have known wife, children, you have known sex and love, you have seen this and that, you have traveled around the world -- but nothing has satisfied you, it feels like something is missing. This is the moment when religion enters into your life. Now it depends on you. If you are very anti-religious you will miss the opportunity of being a seeker when death knocks. But it happens to people at different times. To somebody it may happen at thirty-five, to somebody it may happen at fifty. If you are very intelligent it can happen early, if you are very stupid it will not happen even at forty-two -- it depends. Intelligent people start turning to religion from the very beginning. Yes, it is a question of intelligence, not a question of age. By the age of forty-two sex is no longer such an obsession. If you don't repress sex, sex loses meaning in its own time. Just as it becomes very, very meaningful at the age of fourteen, so it becomes very, very meaningless at the age of forty-two. At the age of forty-nine again a great change happens. A man is not only interested in something greater than sex, he becomes involved, committed. At the age of forty-two he starts thinking, brooding, contemplating; by the age of forty-nine he starts being committed. he can become a monk, or, even if he does not take any outward form, he may start changing in his inside world. He will become a meditator, he will start praying. And this will be a commitment. Now this will not be a feeling, just a feeling, he will devote his whole life to it. Devotion arises at the age of forty-nine, commitment arises at the age of forty-nine. And if things go right, and you are not distracted by foolish people all around, by the age of fifty-six your meditation will start flowering -- the first satoris, the first glimpses of God will happen. And at the age of sixty-three you will be established in samadhi, you would have become enlightened -- if things go rightly.

Sex is just an opportunity for a higher transformation of life energy. As far as it goes it is alright, but when sex becomes the whole, when it becomes the sole outlet for life energy, then it becomes destructive. It can only be the means, not the end. And means are meaningful only when the ends are achieved. The moment sex becomes the end, the spiritual dimension is lost. If your energies are needed somewhere else, somewhere more blissful, sex will disappear. It is not that the energy is sublimated; it is not that you have done something to it. Rather, a new way toward greater bliss has opened for you and automatically, spontaneously, the energy begins to flow toward the new door. This is so automatic, so spontaneous, that no positive action against sex is needed. Whenever you are doing anything against any energy it is negative. The real, positive action is not even connected with sex but is concerned with meditation. You will not even know that sex has gone. It has simply been absorbed by the new. The reason why sex is so important to religious seekers is because it is so nonvoluntary, so compelling, so natural. It has become a criterion to know whether the life energy in a particular person has reached the divine. We cannot know directly that someone has encountered the divine. We can know directly that someone has transcended sex because we are acquainted with sex. Sex is so compulsive, so nonvoluntary, it is so great a force, that it cannot be transcended until someone has achieved the divine. You will encounter something so blissful that sex will become irrelevant and it will subside by itself. Now your energy will no longer flow in that direction. Energy always flows towards bliss. Because bliss appears in sex, energy flows toward it, but if you seek more bliss — a bliss that transcends sex, that goes beyond sex, a bliss that is more fulfilling, deeper, greater — then, by itself, energy will stop flowing towards sex. Go beyond, because still greater bliss awaits you. The journey must continue. This does not mean that by dropping sex one will achieve the divine. The reverse is a fallacy. Anything done negatively with sex will not transform the energy. On the contrary, it will create a conflict within you that will be destructive.

I am not saying that they always play knowingly, there is subconscious desire to enjoy power. Yes, she will become powerless, men will lose interest, his interest is in hunting. Women too is interested in winning other, her ways are passive. When she goes out for a party , she tries too look more attractive, than at her home, before her husband. If man and woman truly love each other, the ugly games of hunting will not happen. But we are so unconscious that we don't know love, we only know power politics and hunting.

She can say ,'we are just friends'. These are ways, how to manipulate, how to starve, the other, how to make him more and more hungry. The women go on pretending that they are not interested in sex, ugly sex. They are as much interested as you are interested, but the problem is: they cannot show their interest, otherwise you immediately reduce them to powerlessness, you start using them. So they are interested in everything else, in being very attractive to you and then denying you. That is the joy of power. Pulling you -- and you are pulled almost as if pulled by strings -- and then saying no to you. Reducing you to absolute powerlessness. And you are wagging your tail like a dog -- then the woman enjoys.

No. You cannot love your enemy! How can you love your enemy? It is a friendship in reverse order. Both give, both enrich your life. Opposites are not really opposites. Deep down, they have a great harmony. They are parts of one whole. They appear two because we have not looked deep down. It is because of our shallow eyes, non-penetrating minds, superficial consciousnesses -- that's why they look like opposites, otherwise they are not. That's why simple logic is always fallacious. Apparently it looks so right: if there is no enemy, the whole world will be your friend. You are wrong. If there is no enemy, there will be no possibility of friendship. There will be no possibility, because the very ground has been destroyed. If you are conscious, distinctions between friend and enemy should disappear !

Yoga is discipline. It is an effort on your part to change yourself. Many other things have to be understood. Yoga is not a therapy. In the West many psychological therapies are prevalent now, and many western psychologists think that yoga is also a therapy. It is not! It is a discipline. And what is the difference? This is the difference: a therapy is needed if you are ill, a therapy is needed if you are diseased, a therapy is needed if you are pathological. A discipline is needed even when you are healthy. Really, when you are healthy only a discipline can help then. It is not for pathological cases. Yoga is for those who are completely healthy as far as medical science is concerned, normal. They are not schizophrenic; they are not mad they are not neurotic. They are normal people, healthy people with no particular pathology. Still, they become aware that whatsoever is called normality is futile, whatsoever is called health is of no use. Something more is needed, something greater is needed, something holier and whole is needed. Therapies are for ill people. Therapies can help you to come to yoga, but yoga is not a therapy. Yoga is for a higher order of health, a different order of health – a different type of being and wholeness. Therapy can, at the most, make you adjusted. Freud says we cannot do more. We can make you an adjusted, normal member of the society – but if the society itself is pathological, then? And it is! The society itself is ill. A therapy can make you normal in the sense that you are adjusted to the society, but the society itself is ill! Yoga is not therapy; yoga is not trying in any way to make you adjusted to the society. If you want to define yoga in terms of adjustment, then it is not adjustment with the society, but it is adjustment with existence itself. It is adjustment with the divine! If your mind has come to realize that whatsoever you have been doing up to now was just senseless, it was a nightmare at the worst or a beautiful dream at the best then the path of discipline opens before you. Patanjali takes it for granted that you are interested in yoga, not as a hope, but as a discipline, as a transformation right here and now.

You can be on the path of enlightenment for the wrong reasons. Look for the reasons why you seek: What are your real reasons? Are you seeking truth? Rarely is a man seeking truth. You may be seeking happiness, but not truth. Happiness happens when truth is achieved. But if you are seeking happiness you cannot achieve truth, because happiness is a byproduct; you cannot achieve it directly, there is no way to it -- it comes via truth. If you reach the true, happiness will happen; it is a shadow, it comes with the truth. But if you seek happiness, then happiness is not possible and truth is missed. Out of one hundred seekers, ninety-nine are for happiness. They have suffered -- life has been a misery, much pain: they are seeking the antidote, they are seeking the opposite. If you seek happiness, how can you lose yourself? The seeker can never lose himself; the ego remains, you remain a point of reference. Or you may not even be in search of happiness, there are even lower goals. You may be seeking to attain power, siddhi, you may be seeking a more egoistic state; then you will miss completely. There are even lower aims. And the lower the aim, the more possibility there is of missing because then you are more blind. You may be seeking for very ordinary reasons like seeking health. The lower the aim, the more you will miss, because the lower the aim, the more you are in the deep valley.

Sex is not the function of the head, but when sex enters in through the head it becomes sexuality. Then you think about sex, then you fantasize about sex. And the more you think, the more you fantasize about it, the more you will get into trouble because then nothing real will ever satisfy you because there is no limitation on fantasy, and reality is limited. Anyway I want to discuss on topic.

Sex is natural, sexuality is not. What behavior do you expect from monks who live in monasteries where no woman has ever entered ?

Those who are in search will need infinite patience. Patience is the greatest religious quality; if you have patience nothing else is needed. Patience is enough, enough unto itself. Patience means hope, trust, and without any hurry, without any impatience. All meditation is waiting. All prayer is infinite patience. The whole of religion consists in not allowing the mind to create more problems for you. The journey is vast, and you cannot be in a hurry. If you are in a hurry you will never be able to move to the other shore.

When monks who meditate for decades don't become enlightened, either something is wrong with monks or enlightenment never happens. How a person doing his job , living in society, family can expect enlightenment ? I believe something is terribly wrong with monks and monasteries !

It is very difficult but not impossible, if you are once indulged in it. Why people find it difficult to reach state of meditation ? Why their journey is long and arduous ? -- because transcendence becomes very difficult after indulgence.

Sex is the absence of meditation. If you accept it and don't transcend it by becoming more meditative, you will remain stuck . Monks neither accept it nor transcend it, they try to repress it. Sex is a natural phenomenon. Sexuality is unnatural, abnormal and pathological. When sex becomes cerebral, when sex enters in your head, it becomes sexuality. Sexuality is consequence of sexual repression practiced by monks.

No ! It is unfortunate that Leo has not provided a negative reputation button.

Woman is woman, man is man; they are unique beings. They are not equal, they are not unequal either; they are simply different. They are opposite polarities. Their being opposites attracts them to each other. The farther away they are, the deeper will be the attraction; the more different from each other they are, the more will be the charm and beauty and attraction. Women should behave like women, according to their nature. Psychologically there is no equality; there is only uniqueness. The woman has to assert her uniqueness, and she has a different way of expressing herself. She is different and she should remain different; her difference is her beauty — and the difference between men and women is their attraction. Women all over the world are trying in every possible way to behave like men. They are wearing men’s clothes, smoking cigarettes like men, and whatsoever they can do. They use language like men have always used it, becoming arrogant, aggressive, losing the feminine quality. They have lost something — something soft, feminine, receptive, passive, is no more there. The woman needs to become as feminine as possible, only then can she flower. And the man needs to be as masculine as possible, only then can he flower. When they are polar opposites, a great attraction, a great magnetism, arises between them. And when they come close, when they meet in intimacy, they bring two different worlds, two different dimensions, two different richnesses, and the meeting is a tremendous blessing, a benediction. We can make a better world together. Men and women should be really half-and-half of a whole. There are qualities which men have and women do not have; there are qualities which women have and men do not have. Both together, the human being will be richer in every possible way.

Buddhism says that every living being has a buddha-nature; every living being can become a buddha. It is something to be pondered over. Why should a dog not have a buddha-nature? If every living being has buddha-nature, why should dogs be such exceptional beings? Just because in our minds the very word 'dog' is condemned, we cannot think that a dog can have a buddha-nature -- "My God, then what is the point of having a buddha-nature? Even a dog can have it. It is not worth bothering! Years of meditation, long pilgrimages, and finally what we attain is just a dog's nature." But in fact a dog is just a god spelt wrongly.A dog has as much potential to be a buddha as Gautam Buddha himself. There is no question why poor dogs should be left out, when all beings -- donkeys and monkeys and even Yankees -- all are included. The dog is a poor animal, innocent. There is nothing wrong in the dog. Perhaps he has to travel a long way to become a buddha, but it is only a question of time. Some day a dog is also going to become enlightened. In some birth, somewhere in the future ...

Hot girls are dangerous, ugly women are good – they have to be good. You can find them at meditation or contemplation retreats. Whenever a woman is beautiful she need not care about being nice. It is enough to be beautiful, why she should be nice too? She will be nasty! Ugly women are very nice. They compensate by being nice, by being very loving. Ugly women are medicinal, but beautiful women are sweet in the beginning and very bitter in the end. The outer beauty comes from a different source than the inner. But the inner beauty comes from your own growth of consciousness. But sometimes it happens that your inner beauty is so much, your inner light is so much that it starts radiating from your outer body. Your outer body may not be beautiful, but the light that comes from your sources, your innermost sources of eternal life, will make even a body which is not beautiful in the ordinary sense appear beautiful, radiant. You fall in love with a woman or a man, because you can see only the outer. And just within a few days you start discovering his inner state; it doesn't correspond to his outer beauty. On the contrary it is very ugly.

Jesus said: It is impossible for a man to mount two horses and to stretch two bows; and it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters, otherwise he will honor the one and offend the other. Everybody is already mounted on two horses, everybody is stretching two bows -- not only two but many. That's how anguish is created, that's why you are constantly in anxiety. Anxiety shows that somehow you are mounted on two horses. How can you be at ease? Impossible, because the two horses are moving in two directions, and you cannot move anywhere. With one horse movement is possible, you can reach somewhere. With two horses movement is impossible, they will negate each other and you will not reach anywhere. And this is the anxiety -- that you are not reaching anywhere. Deep down this is the anguish: that life is slipping out of your hands, time is becoming less and less, death is coming near and you are not reaching anywhere. It is as if you have become a stagnant pool, just getting dryer and dryer and dying. There is no goal, no fulfillment. But why is it happening? -- because you have been trying to do the impossible. Try to understand the mind as it functions in you, then you will be able to understand what Jesus means. You want to be as free as a poor man because only a poor man can be free -- he has no burden, he has nothing to protect, you cannot rob him. He is unafraid. You cannot snatch anything from him because he has nothing; with nothing, he is at ease; with nothing as his possession, nothing can be stolen from him. Nobody is his enemy because he is not a competitor at all, he is not competing with anybody. You want to be as free as a poor man, as a beggar, but you also want to be as secure as a rich man, as safe as an emperor. The rich man is safe, the rich man is secure, he feels more rooted. Outwardly, he has made all the arrangements, he is not vulnerable: he has protections against death, you cannot murder him so easily, he has an armor. And you would like to be free like the beggar and to be secure like an emperor -- then you are mounted on two horses and it is impossible to reach anywhere. You love a person, but you want the person to behave like a thing, completely in your hands. But you cannot love a thing, because a thing is dead and cannot respond to you. So if the other is really a person he cannot be possessed, he is like mercury: the more you try to keep him in your fist, the more he goes out -- because to be a person means to be free. If he is a person, you cannot possess him; if you can possess him, he is no longer a person and you will not be able to love him. Then he is just a dead thing. Who can love a dead thing? You are mounted on two horses. You want a person like a thing, which is impossible! A person has to be free and alive, and only then can you love him. But then you feel difficult, you start possessing, and then you start killing him; you are poisoning. If he allows you this poisoning, sooner or later he will be just a thing. So wives become decorative pieces in the houses, husbands become just watchmen -- but love disappears. And this is happening in all directions. There is doubt in you because doubt has its benefits: it gives you more calculating power, it gives you more protection, nobody can deceive you easily. So you doubt -- but then doubt creates anxiety because deep down you are uneasy. Doubt is just like illness. Unless you have trust you cannot be at ease, because doubt means wavering and wavering is uneasy. Doubt means, "What to do -- this or that?" Doubt means, "To be or not to be?" -- and it is impossible to decide. Not even on a single point is decision possible through doubt. At the most, you can decide with the part of the mind which becomes the majority. But the minority is there, and it is not a small minority. And because you have chosen against the minority, the minority will always be looking for the situation when it can say you have chosen wrongly. The minority is there to rebel; it is a constant turmoil within you. With doubt there is uneasiness. It is an illness, it is just like any illness -- it is a mental illness. So a man who doubts becomes more and more ill. But you cannot deceive him easily because he is more cunning, he is more clever in the ways of the world. You cannot deceive him, but he is ill. So there is a benefit -- he cannot be deceived -- but there is a loss, a great loss. The benefit is at a very great cost: he remains wavering, uneasy, he cannot decide. Even if he decides, that decision is just the major portion deciding against the minor. He is divided, there is always conflict. Trust you also want. You also want to be in faith, because faith gives you health; there is no indecisiveness, you are completely certain. Certainty gives you a happiness: there is no wavering, you are unwavering; you are whole, not divided -- and wholeness is health. Trust gives you health, but then you become vulnerable, anybody can deceive you. If you trust you are in danger, because there are people all around who would like to exploit you, and they can exploit you only when you trust. If you doubt, they cannot exploit. So you are mounted on two horses, doubt and faith -- but you are doing the impossible. You will remain constantly in anxiety and anguish, you will deteriorate. In this conflict of the two horses you will die. Some day or other there is going to be an accident -- that accident will be your death: you will be finished before you have reached anywhere; you will be finished before the flowers come; you will be finished before you come to know what life is, what it means to be. The being will have disappeared. JESUS SAID: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A MAN TO MOUNT TWO HORSES.... But every man is trying to do the impossible, that is why every man is in trouble. And I say to you: this is in every direction. So there are not only two horses, there are millions of horses altogether, and every moment you are living a contradiction. Why does it happen? The mechanism has to be understood, only then can you drop it. Why does it happen? The way every child is brought up is the cause. The way every child enters into this world of mad people all around is the cause. They create contradictions, they teach you contradictory things. For example, you have been taught: Love the whole of humanity, be brotherly to each and everyone, love thy neighbor as thyself. And simultaneously you have been educated, brought up, conditioned, to compete, to compete with everyone. When you compete, the other is the enemy, not the friend. He has to be defeated, he has to be conquered; really, he has to be destroyed. And you have to be ruthless, otherwise the other will destroy you. If you are a competitor, then the whole society is the enemy, nobody is a neighbor, nobody is a brother. And you cannot love -- you have to hate, you have to be jealous, you have to be angry. You have to be continuously ready to fight and win, and it is a hard struggle -- if you are tender-hearted you are lost. So be strong and violent and aggressive. Before the other attacks, you attack him. Before it is too late, you attack and win; otherwise you will be lost because millions are competing for the same thing, you are not alone. And how can a mind which is in competition be in love with its neighbor? It is impossible! But both teachings have been given to you: you have been taught that honesty is the best policy, and also that business is business! Both things together, both horses have been given to you together. And a child, unaware of the ways of the world, cannot see and feel the contradiction. To feel the contradiction a very mature intelligence is needed; a Jesus, a Buddha is needed to feel the contradiction. A child is unaware of the ways of the world, and the teachers -- the father, the mother, the family -- are persons he loves. He loves them -- how can he think that they are creating contradictions in him? He cannot even imagine it because they are his benefactors: they are kind to him, they are bringing him up. They are his source of energy, life, everything. So why should they create contradictions? A father loves, a mother loves, but the problem is that they were also brought up in the same wrong way and they don't know what to do except to repeat. Whatsoever their parents taught them, they are teaching their children. They are simply transferring a disease; from one generation to another the disease is being transferred. You may call it the 'treasure', the 'tradition', but it is a disease. It is a disease because no one becomes healthy through it. The whole society goes more and more neurotic. And a child is so simple, so innocent, that he can be conditioned into contradictory ways. By the time he realizes the contradiction it is too late. And it happens that almost your whole life is lost, and you never realize that you are mounted on two horses. Think about this contradiction and find it, try to find it in your life. You will find millions of contradictions there -- you are a confusion, a mess, a chaos. Look at the so-called religious man: he is more confused than the worldly because new horses have been added. The man who lives in the market, the world of the market, is less confused because he may have many horses, but at least they all belong to this world; at least one thing is the same, similar -- they all belong to this world. And this religious man, he has so many horses: those which belong to this world and some new horses he has added which don't belong to this world. He has created a greater rift: the other world, God, the kingdom of God, and he continues to move in this world. He becomes more confused, more conflict arises in his being. He is rent apart, he is not together; every fragment is falling apart, all his togetherness is gone -- this is what neurosis is. The way you are brought up is wrong, but nothing can be done now because you have already been brought up, you cannot move back. So you have to understand it and drop it through understanding. If you drop it because I say so, then you will add more horses. If you drop it through understanding -- because you understand the whole thing and hence it is dropped -- then no more horses will be added. On the contrary, old horses will be released to their freedom, so they can move and reach their goals... and you can move and reach your own goal. For not only are you in difficulty, your horses are also in very great difficulty because of you; they cannot reach anywhere either. Have pity on yourself and on your horses, both. But this should be done through understanding -- your understanding, not my teaching or Jesus' or Buddha's. They can show the path, but if you follow without understanding you will never reach the goal. Now try to understand. JESUS SAID: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A MAN TO MOUNT TWO HORSES AND STRETCH TWO BOWS; AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A SERVANT TO SERVE TWO MASTERS, OTHERWISE HE WILL HONOR THE ONE AND OFFEND THE OTHER. Why is it impossible, and what is impossibility? An impossibility is not something which is very difficult, no. Howsoever difficult a thing may be it is not impossible, you can achieve it. By impossibility is meant something which cannot be achieved whatsoever you do; there is no way, no possibility to do it. When Jesus says impossible he means impossible, he doesn't mean very difficult -- and you are trying to do the impossible. What will happen? It cannot be done, but you will be undone through it. It cannot be done, but what will happen to you who have been making an effort to do the impossible? You will fall apart. It is not possible to do it, but doing it, you are undoing your own life. This will happen, this has happened. Look at people who doubt. Have you seen a man who has doubt and who does not have faith? If you see a man who only has doubt you will see he cannot live, it is impossible to live. Go to the madhouses: there you will find people who have doubts about everything. Then they cannot even move, because they doubt even a simple action. A man who doubts cannot move innocently. Before he moves he will think, and sometimes he will think so much that the opportunity is lost. That's why thinkers never do much. They cannot act, they become simply cerebral, because before action they must decide, they must come to a conclusion; and they cannot come to a conclusion, so how can they act? Then it is better not to act, and wait. But life will not wait for you. Or you become faithful, believing, a blind man. Then anybody, any politician, any madman, any pope, any priest can lead you anywhere. They themselves are blind, and when the blind lead the blind there is bound to be catastrophe. What to do? Reasoning says, ordinary reasoning says, "Make a compromise." Just understand the problem and get down from both horses -- don't make any compromise. Then a totally different sort of being, a totally different quality to your consciousness happens. But why are you not doing that? -- because that quality needs alertness, that quality needs awareness. Then you need not doubt anybody, you simply have to be fully alert. Your alertness will be the protection against exploitation. If a fully alert man looks at you, you cannot deceive him; his very look will disarm you. And if he allows exploitation, it is not because you are cunning and cheating him, but because he is kind and allows you. You cannot cheat a fully alert man. It is impossible because he looks through you, you are transparent; he has such consciousness that you are transparent. If he allows you to cheat him it is because of his compassion. You cannot cheat him. This consciousness seems to be difficult; that's why you have chosen the impossible. But the impossible is impossible -- you only make believe that it can happen; it has never happened, it will never happen. You have chosen the impossible because it looks easier. Compromise always looks easier -- whenever you are in difficulty you compromise. But compromise never helps anybody, because compromise means two contraries will exist within you; they will always be in tension and they will divide you. And a divided man can never be happy. This is what Jesus means, but Christians have misunderstood him. Christians have completely missed Jesus, because the mind goes on interpreting. What have they interpreted? They think Jesus is saying, "Choose one horse! Either this world or that -- choose one! Don't mount two horses, because you will be in difficulty and it is impossible. So choose one horse." That's what they have come to conclude and interpret. Your mind sticks to its own conclusions, because if one conclusion is lost, your confidence is lost. So whatsoever the situation you stick to your conclusions. That gives you ground for your ego and your mind to stand on. Your reasoning can be suicidal. It is! You think it is reasoning, but it is not reasoning, it is just deceiving -- deceiving yourself. But you don't want to lose ground, you want to be confident; and all confidence that comes through mind is false, because mind cannot give you confidence. It can only give you false things, it can only supply you with false things. It has not got the real thing with it, it is just a shadow. Mind is just thoughts, shadows, nothing substantial in it. But it can go on playing rationalizations, and you will feel good. Christians miss the whole point. They think Jesus is saying, "Choose!" Jesus can never say, "Choose!" -- Jesus means choicelessness. ... Because if you choose, the choosing mind is strengthened, not destroyed; the mind which is choosing becomes stronger through the choice. No, it is not a question of choice. And through choice you can never be total, because you have to deny something. If you choose faith you will have to deny doubt. Where will this doubt go? It is not something outward that you can throw, it is deep in you. Where will it go? You can simply close your eyes, that's all; you can simply repress it in the unconscious, that's all. But it is there, like a worm, eating your consciousness. It will be there, and someday or other it will come to the surface. What can you do? How can you drop it? If you choose doubt, where will your faith go? It is part of you. So compromise will happen: you will become an amalgam of many things somehow put together; not a synthesis but a compromise. Jesus means quite the contrary. He means, "Don't choose." IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A MAN TO MOUNT TWO HORSES AND STRETCH TWO BOWS; AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A SERVANT TO SERVE TWO MASTERS, OTHERWISE HE WILL HONOR THE ONE AND OFFEND THE OTHER. Look at the last phrase: ... OTHERWISE HE WILL HONOR THE ONE AND OFFEND THE OTHER. If you choose one, you honor the one and offend the other -- and the offended part of you will take revenge, it will become rebellious. Jesus is not saying, "Choose one against the other." If you choose one against the other, the other part will be offended, and the offended part of your being will take revenge. And it makes it very difficult, it makes life almost impossible to live. The more you try to live with one part, the more the other part disturbs all your planning, all your scheming; it comes up again and again. Then what to do? The way, the thing to be done, is not to choose. The thing is to understand the whole contradiction of your being. Not choosing, but becoming choiceless; not dropping one against the other -- because you cannot drop one aspect of a thing. You have a rupee coin, it has two aspects. You cannot drop one aspect, you cannot drop one side of it. You may not like the other side, but you have to carry both; if you want to carry one you have to carry two, then the whole rupee will be with you. The only thing that you can manage is that you can hide the aspect you don't like, and the aspect you like you can put on the surface, that's all. That's how the conscious and the unconscious are created. The conscious is that part, that horse that you like, and the unconscious is that horse, that part that you don't like. The conscious is that which you have chosen, the unconscious is that against which you have chosen. These are the two churches -- the one you go to and the one you don't go to. Otherwise, in a man like Buddha, the conscious and the unconscious both disappear, because he has not chosen for, he has not chosen against. The whole coin drops. And only the whole coin can drop, half can never be dropped. If you do that, your being will be divided: the dropped, the repressed, the denied part will become the unconscious; the accepted, the welcomed part will become the conscious. And then there will be a continuous struggle between the conscious and the unconscious. But you are still mounted on two horses. The only way is to drop the whole thing, and the secret is not in dropping -- because dropping can also become a choice. This is the most complex and subtle thing: you can drop, and choose dropping against not dropping -- then again there are two horses. No, this is to be done through understanding. Dropping is not the thing, understanding is the thing. Understand the whole madness: what you have done to yourself, what you have allowed to happen to yourself, what type of contradictions you have been accumulating -- just see through the whole thing. Don't be for and against, don't condemn, don't judge -- just look through the whole thing that you are. Don't hide, don't offend, don't judge: "This is good and that is bad." Don't evaluate. Don't be a judge but just an onlooker, detached, a witness. Just see the whole thing that you are, whatsoever you are; whatsoever mess you are in, just see it as it is. Suddenly, an understanding arises which becomes the dropping. It is just as if you have been trying to enter a wall, and suddenly you become aware that this is a wall and there is no door. Do you need to drop the effort now? You simply move! That movement is simple, it is not for and against -- you simply understand that this is absolutely useless, impossible. That is the meaning of Jesus: you simply look; it is impossible, you move. There is no choice on the part of the mind, you don't make any effort. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A MAN TO MOUNT TWO HORSES AND TO STRETCH TWO BOWS, AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A SERVANT TO SERVE TWO MASTERS, OTHERWISE HE WILL HONOR THE ONE AND OFFEND THE OTHER. The ordinary meaning will be, "Choose one master, don't choose two." But through choice you will never be whole, so it is not a question of choosing one master against another, because you will still remain a slave, you cannot be free. Only choicelessness can give you freedom. Then you don't choose, you simply drop the whole effort -- it drops by itself when you understand. Then you are the master. When the impossible effort is gone, anxiety disappears, then you are no longer in anguish. And when you are no longer in anguish, bliss arises. Bliss is not something to be achieved. You only have to create the capacity. When you are not in anguish, bliss happens. You have created the capacity, you have opened the door and the sunrays enter and fill you. As you are, anxiety-ridden, divided, mounted on two horses, trying to stretch two bows together, you are schizophrenic, you are ill, you are wavering. Or, at the most, you have made a compromise and you have become normally neurotic. A normal being somehow carries on his work; the neurosis does not come in the way, that's all -- an adjusted citizen, that's all. But it is not worthwhile. Even if you are an adjusted citizen, a good citizen, a normal human being, no ecstasy will happen to you. You will remain sad, and whatsoever you achieve in this world will give you more sadness. Look at the people who have succeeded, who are ahead of you, who have reached the top, and you will see they are more sad than people who are not so successful -- because their hope is lost. In a poor country there is not so much madness. People can still hope. And when you can hope, nothing comes up -- you go on running and running. When the goal is achieved, then you stand still and you have to look at yourself and at what a mess you have created in your being, what chaos. You suddenly go out of your mind. You have always been out of your mind, but it is revealed when you succeed, because when there is no more to dream about, you have to encounter yourself. As you are, bliss is not possible, happiness is impossible. You can only hope for it and tolerate the pain, the suffering that you have brought upon yourself. But bliss is possible; it has happened to a Jesus, to a Buddha, it can happen to you -- but then you have to leave the impossible aside. Think of the natural, the possible, the easy. Don't think of the impossible, the difficult, the challenging. The ego always likes to do the impossible, but it is a failure, it has to be a failure. But the ego likes to take the challenge of the impossible, because then you feel you are something. Against an impossible goal you become a great fighter. And religion is simple, easy, natural -- it is not riding on a horse at all. It is just a morning walk not going anywhere. Just walking is the end; not doing anything in particular, just enjoying the morning breeze, the sun, the birds -- just enjoying yourself.

Most of them become sexually perverted, they fantasize about sex. Unless you live meditatively all day , you can't encounter divine.

A person who lives with ego is bound to suffer again as ego starts crashing when the old age and death comes, then no psychologist can help. Only the person who meditates regularly can escape the final misery.

Upbringing of modern man is different from the people who developed Yoga. It demands a disciple and lifestyle which is not suitable for modern man.

India has a long history, when Buddha was born , that was the golden age of India, Indian civilization was at its peak.

Yoga is very ancient in India, Buddhism is only two thousand years old. Physiological part of yoga offers devices to maintain good physical health and longevity. The second part,the psychological part , is even vaster than the physiological. If you get into it you can have many psychic powers. Buddha was not offering anything. He was saying, there is no God, no soul, no paradise, people were not able to understand him. Buddhism spreaded in China and eastern Asia ,only because his disciples manipulated his teachings.

Western psychology’s aim is to fortify the individual’s ego so that he may become less neurotic, slightly happier and ultimately function ‘better’ in society. You will be more normal, but to be normal is nothing. To be normal is not even worth talking about. To be normal means you are as you should be ordinarily. You will be a more adjusted person in the society also. Of course, you will be a little better husband, a little better mother, a little better friend, but only a little. Man can be physically ill; then the physician, the doctor is needed. Man can be psychologically ill; then a little help can be given by Psychologist. But when man is existentially ill, neither a physician nor a psychiatrist can be of any help. And the illness is existential. Man suffers from a spiritual illness. You may be physically healthy, you may be psychologically healthy, but you may not be existentially healthy at all. On the contrary, when you are psychologically and physically healthy, for the first time you become aware of the existential anxiety, of the anguish inside. Before it you were so occupied with the body and the mind and the illnesses that you couldn’t afford to look at the inward being. When everything is set right: body functions well, mind is not in any trouble, suddenly you become aware of the greatest anxiety in the world — the existential, the spiritual. Suddenly you start asking, ‘What is the meaning of it all? Why am I here, for what?’ This never occurs to an ill man because he is too occupied with the illness. First he has to look after the body, and then he will think. Then he has to look after the mind, and then he will think. Body and mind, if healthy, will allow you for the first time to be really in trouble. And that trouble will be spiritual. The whole Western psychology up to now has not come to the point of non-ego. It is still thinking in terms of the ego: how to make the ego more strongly rooted, centered; how to make the ego more healthy, normal, adjusted.