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Part VI : Questions about Meditation and Enlightenment
People come to me and say, "There was a great light during
the meditation, but I lost it again. Infinite light was there,
but it disappeared again. There was immense bliss, but where has
it gone now?" Now they are searching for it again and cannot
find it.
A glimpse means you had come close. But glimpses are bound to
be lost. Meditation can, at the most, give only a glimpse. But
do not stop there; do not get stuck looking for that same glimpse
again and again. The only purpose of meditation is that one gets
a glimpse. Then one has to go ahead, into samadhi, into enlightenment,
so that one becomes the very flower.
In meditation is a glimpse; samadhi is being it. finger01
So whatsoever you want to play you can play, but forget the ends.
If there are ends you have also turned meditation into a work.
Just play it, enjoy it, love it. It is beautiful in itself. There
is no need for any other end to beautify it.
People come to me and they say, "We are enjoying meditation,
but tell us what is going to happen. What will be the end result?"
I tell them, "This is the end result—that you are enjoying.
Enjoy it more!"
But they go on insisting, "Tell us something about it. What
will be the end result? Where will we reach to?" They are
not concerned at all where they are; they are always concerned
with where they will reach to. The mind cannot exist in the present
so it goes on giving you excuses to move into the future. Those
excuses are the desires. So if you desire to be a god, to be a
buddha, your meditation will be a sort of desire, and then it
is not meditation. If you don't desire anything, you just enjoy
being here, you just celebrate being alive, you enjoy the inner
energy playing in imagination, in visions, in emptiness, whatsoever
you choose, and you are totally one with this moment of enjoyment,
then it is meditation. Then there is no desire, and, with no desire,
the world drops. With a nondesiring, playful mind you have entered.
You are already in it.
But this has to be hammered into your mind again and again because
your mind is a transformer. It transforms anything into a desire—anything;
it can transform even nondesire into a desire. People come to
me and they say, "How does one achieve the state of nondesire?
How to achieve the state of nondesire?" Now this has become
the desire. Your mind has a transforming mechanism: whatsoever
you put in will come out as a desire.
Be alert of this and enjoy moments so much that no energy is
left to move into the future. Then, any day, any moment, it will
happen to you that suddenly all the darkness falls; suddenly all
that is a burden disappears; suddenly you are freed. But the emphasis
should be more and more on play, the present, here and now—and
less and less on the future. vbt68
You ask: "Does this enlightenment happening occur suddenly
and unexpectedly?"
Both things can be said. It cannot be predicted, so it happens
suddenly. Nobody can say when it will happen. My own disciples
go on asking me, "When? Give the date, the day, the month,
the year!" And I have to go on lying to them. I go on saying,
"Soon!" Soon doesn't mean anything. And soon is a beautiful
word, because I need never change it. Whenever you ask I will
say, "Soon!"
The happening is unpredictable because it is so vast a phenomenon.
And it is not mechanical, it is not mathematical, so you cannot
conclude about it. And it is very mysterious; when it has happened,
only then you know that it has happened. So in a sense, because
it is unpredictable it is always sudden. Even you don't know when
it will happen. Suddenly one day when it has happened you become
aware that it has happened. Not even a single moment before will
you be aware that this is going to happen. You will become aware
only when it has happened already. Then you will feel that you
are no more the same, the man who was there has disappeared and
a new man is there in his place—somebody new. You are unacquainted,
you cannot recognize yourself. There has been a gap, the old continuity
has been broken and something new has come into its place.
Even your master cannot predict it. He may become aware that
something is going to happen, but he cannot predict it. There
are problems—because even the prediction will change the
whole situation. This is the problem, even the prediction will
change it. If I become aware that something is going to happen
to you tomorrow morning, I cannot say it because that will change
the whole situation. If I say, "Tomorrow morning this is
going to happen," you will become tense and you will start
expecting and you will start waiting. You will not be able to
sleep in the night. Then the whole thing is finished, then it
is not going to happen tomorrow morning.
Even if your master becomes aware…because there are signs
that show that something is going to happen. Your master can see
that you are pregnant, he can feel, but it is not such a fixed
affair that within nine months the child will be born. You may
take nine years, you may take nine lives, you may not take even
nine days; even nine moments may be enough. It depends, and it
depends on such multidimensional things that nothing can be said.
And if something is said, the very assertion will change the whole
situation. So the master has to wait, just watch and not say anything.
In this sense it is sudden, but in another sense it is not sudden,
because you have to make efforts for it, you have to prepare.
You have to prepare the ground, you have to open the doors. The
guest may come suddenly, but if your doors are closed he may come
and go back. So you have to open the doors, you have to clean
the house, you have to prepare food for the guest—you have
to be ready. You have to watch and wait at the door—any
moment the guest can come. vedant09
Two days ago a lady came to me and said, "I am well advanced
in years and am nearing death. When will I attain enlightenment?
Please hurry and do something lest I die." I told her to
come for meditation for a few days; then we would see what is
to be done.
She said, "I do not want to be bothered with meditation.
Do something so that I may attain enlightenment."
Now this lady is searching to get something without paying for
it. Such a search is dangerous. You gain nothing by it; on the
contrary you lose. The meditator should not harbor any such expectations.
One receives what one is ready for. You should trust that this
is so. mirac206
Many people come to me and ask, "How to know that such and
such a person is really enlightened?" Where is the necessity
for you to know whether a person is really enlightened or not?
If you can stay aware of whether you are enlightened or not, that
is enough. Even if the other has become enlightened, this in itself
does not make you enlightened. If the other has not become enlightened,
this does not bring any hindrance to your enlightenment.
But why do we think in this manner? There are reasons for it.
We want to make sure that nobody has attained to nonattachment.
That gives us a sort of relief. Then there is no harm…if
I have not attained to nonattachment then there is no harm, nobody
else has attained it either! This gives a consolation to the mind,
a support to the mind, that I am fine as I am because nobody has
ever attained, and neither have I.
This is why our mind is never willing to accept that anybody
has attained to nonattachment. We try to find all kinds of loopholes
to show that the person has not yet attained. If somebody has
attained to nonattachment it creates an inner discomfort within
us. That discomfort is that if somebody else has attained, it
only means that I can also attain but am unable to do so—and
this creates anxiety and guilt. Hence nobody in this world accepts
the other as right. It has nothing to do with the other, but in
not accepting anybody as right it becomes easier to accept one's
own evils. finger12
Meditation means dehypnotization. The process looks just the
same.
Many people come to me and they say, "Whatsoever is being
done here, is it not hypnosis?" It is dehypnosis. The process
is the same, but the dimension is reversed. You can hypnotize
yourself—that is going further from yourself towards the
object. You can dehypnotize yourself—that is going back
from the object towards oneself. When you are centered in some
object, you are hypnotized. When you are centered in yourself,
you are dehypnotized. When you are yourself, you are beyond hypnosis.
thou27
In the old days, particularly in the East, hypnosis was used
in every ashram. The master used it in every way to help you,
because consciously you may take years to do a particular thing
but in hypnosis, through hypnosis, within seconds it can be done.
Unnecessary effort can be saved. But only masters were allowed
to hypnotize. Hypnosis remained a secret science in the East;
it was not used publicly because there are possibilities of misusing
it. vedant09
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