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Part VII : Dance
The drum is the most primitive instrument. When you feel that
drum beating, your body responds, sways, you start falling into
the beat, moving with the beat, and suddenly you have become a
primitive, a natural being: all civilization drops. You are no
longer here in this twentieth century and all the nonsense that
goes on around—you have moved back almost ten thousand years.
Just the other night, our Ethiopian sannyasin, Neeraj, came
to show me a few Ethiopian dances. They were wonderful. He danced
with a very primitive beat, very, very primitive. Ethiopia is
one of the oldest lands on earth, it is the country of Solomon.
Since Solomon they have been dancing with the primitive beat.
It has a deep appeal. There is no need to understand it, your
body will understand it. Nobody could understand the song that
was following the beat but everybody understood the beat. There
were Americans, there were English, there were Indians here and
everybody could follow it. The language of the drum is universal.
treas210
The way of the Sufi is the way of the drunkard, the dancer,
who becomes almost intoxicated in his dancing, who is transported
through his dance. He is inebriated; his dance is psychedelic.
It is said that Mohammed once said to Ali, "You are of
me, and I am of you." When he heard this, Ali became ecstatic
and involuntarily started dancing. What else can you do, when
a man like Mohammed says to you, "You are of me, and I am
of you"? How to receive this? Ali did well.
And remember, it is not anything that he did. It was involuntary.
He started dancing; out of ecstasy the dance started flowing.
Another time, Mohammed said to Jafar, "You are like me
in both looks and character." Here again, in wajd, Jafar
started dancing. What else to do? When Mohammed must have looked
into the eyes of Jafar, wajd, samadhi, was created, the transfer
beyond the scriptures happened. How to receive this? How not to
dance? It would have been impossible not to dance. Jafar danced….
On the surface, from the outside, the Sufi seems to be dancing.
But he is not dancing, because there is no dancer. It is pure
dance. God has taken possession of him. The Sufi is drunk, intoxicated.
His state is that of non-being. He is anchorless. The waves of
the ocean toss and turn. First his inner being is stirred, great
joy arises there; and then it starts spreading towards his body….
You are participating in something immensely beautiful in Sufi
dancing. Remember it: forget the dancer and be the dance.
The way of the Sufi is the way of dance, song, celebration. secret14
Dancing is immensely valuable. Dancing should become a natural
phenomenon for everybody. It was once; it is still in very primitive
people. It is not that a few people dance—there are no dancers;
everybody is a dancer. Dancing is a general activity, like breathing.
There are still tribes, small tribes in India in deep forests;
their whole life is dance. They cannot believe that there are
people who don't dance, because they cannot believe how you can
live without dancing! Life will be almost nil.
Their whole life revolves around dance. Each and everything becomes
an excuse for dance. Each night is a dancing night and the whole
tribe dances: small children, women, men, old women…no barriers
of age. Dance is for all because dance is equivalent to life.
Man has missed much.
Bertrand Russell has said somewhere that he was always in favour
of civilization, culture; he was a rational man. But when he came
across a primitive tribe in Africa his whole idea of civilization
simply fell down flat on the ground, and he started feeling very
jealous. He writes, 'In that moment I was ready to drop all culture
and all civilization if I could know how to dance again.'
My *sannyasins have all to be dancers, and no excuse should
be missed; each excuse has to be used as an opportunity to dance.
Somebody's birthday, dance; somebody has died, dance. Somebody
is ill, dance around him. Somebody is going for a journey, give
him a farewell dance. Somebody is coming, welcome him with dance.
Make it a point that the more you dance, the more you are in tune
with god.
When you dance it is god who dances in you; that's why it is
so beautiful. Whenever you dance you are no more separate, you
don't have a split. You are no more body/mind; you are no more
this and that. You don't have alternatives. All alternatives disappear,
all dualities disappear. In fact there is no dancer and the dance;
there is only dance!
One comes to a state of non-duality, and non-duality is orgasm.
That's what people are searching for through love, through alcohol,
through drugs—a state where they are no more separate from
existence. But those methods are dangerous and very costly. You
gain very little joy and you destroy your whole chemistry, your
body. It is not worth it.
Through dance you don't lose anything and you gain infinity….
losers11
I give you this as a key, as a criterion, as a touchstone. Keep
it always in mind that whenever you are feeling uneasy, disturbed,
restless, remember: you are doing something which is against the
universal rhythm, the universal dance. You are out of step, that's
all. Start moving back into rhythm, come back into harmony, and
suddenly there is sunlight; the clouds have disappeared and the
path has been found.
Dance is a rhythmic movement. Dance represents god more than
anything else. In my observation, dance is the most prayerful
activity possible. When your body is in a dance and you are utterly
lost in the rhythm of it, you start coming closer to god. halle16
Just as music is one beautiful door, so is dance. And dance
will help you immensely. The only secret is to be lost in it,
to be drowned in it. One has to dance in a kind of drunkenness.
It is intoxicating, if you allow it. If you allow yourself to
be possessed by it, then the very movements create some alchemical
change in the inner energy. It intoxicates. Nothing intoxicates
like a dance, and sometimes the intoxication is so much that even
those who are looking at the dancer start feeling drunk. But that
is nothing compared to what happens to the dancer himself or herself.
But dance should not be a performance, otherwise the whole thing
is missed. Then it is just acting on the outside—the dancer
is never lost in it. And that is the whole point, the very crux
of the matter: dance is divine when the dancer has disappeared
into it. When the dancer dies in his dance and only dance remains,
then you are in the hands of god. Then he is moving you, he is
moving within you. Then for miles you cannot find yourself, and
the moment when you cannot find yourself is the moment when god
is found.
So while you are here, dance to abandonment! halle31
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