Don't go anywhere in imagination...

Listen to these beautiful and tremendously significant words from Kabir: "O MY HEART! GO NOT ELSEWHERE." There is no need to go anywhere. All is already given to you. You are a fool going anywhere and begging for it. God has made you from the very beginning as an emperor. He never creates beggars. If you have taken the role of a beggar, it is simply your responsibility and your stupidity.

"KABIR SAYS: 'PUT ALL IMAGINATION AWAY....'" This idea that you are a beggar is also your imagination. And the next idea, when you get fed up with your begging, desires, ambitions, and you start reading the scriptures and you come across great sayings -- "Aham Brahmasmi" -- "I am God"and then you start imagining "I am God"; that too is imagination.

Rather than imagining, drop all imagination, move into a state of no-imagination. That's what he means: "GO NOT ELSEWHERE." Imagination is the way to go somewhere else. Listen to it: whenever you imagine, you go away from yourself. You fall asleep in the night -- whole night you were here -- but in your imagination you had gone to so many places.

Exactly the same is the case: you have never left your divinehood, your godhood. You have never left that, there you are rooted, but in imagination sometimes you became an animal and sometimes you became a tree and sometimes you became a man and sometimes you become angry and sometimes you become very kind, sometimes you are a gentleman and sometimes you are a robber. You go on imagining. Sometimes you think you are a child and sometimes you think you are young and sometimes you think you are old, sometimes you think you are a man and sometimes you think you are a woman, but these are all imaginations.

Deep down, you are only God and nothing else. These are all roles that you choose yourself. You create, you project, and then you enter into your own projections.

Go not elsewhere, O my heart! Consider it well.

"KABIR SAYS: 'PUT ALL IMAGINATION AWAY....'" That's what meditation is all about: putting imagination away. But there are foolish people who bring their imagination to their meditation too. In meditation also they start imagining; they start imagining a thousand and one things. Somebody imagines he has seen Krishna, somebody imagines his KUNDALINI is rising, somebody imagines his SAHASRAR is opening, somebody imagines something else, and people have different imaginations. These are all imaginations.

When you feel your KUNDALINI is rising, don't get involved in it -- let it rise. Remain aloof and detached, and say, "Okay, this must be some imagination." You have heard so much about KUNDALINI rising. You must be reading the books of Gopi Krishna -- KUNDALINI rising -- and so many yogis are talking about it. It is in the air, so you become infected with the idea. Then you are waiting for it to rise. Not even simply waiting, but in a subtle way, trying to help it to rise. You are ready to support it. Just a slight thing -- an ant crawling upon your spine -- and it is there and suddenly you are full of energy. And you have imagined it and you have created. Now it becomes yet another ego trip.

You have read in books that the third eye will open, so you are waiting for it, and when you close your eyes -- consciously, unconsciously -- you look for the third eye, and you start imagining. One day, you can see the light there -- imagination is tremendously powerful. It can create whatsoever you want to create.

Now look: in India, Jainas have existed as long as the Hindus -- one of the oldest religions of the world is Jainism -- but Mahavir never talked about KUNDALINI, and the Jainas' twenty-four TEERTHANKARAS never talked about KUNDALINI. Down through the ages, down through the centuries, Jainas ave not talked about kundalini, so it never rises in a Jaina saint -- never -- because they never read about it. So it never arises in a Jaina saint. Buddhists don't believe in it, so it never rises. Christians, Mohammedans, never heard about t, so it never rises.

Something else happens to Buddhists: CHAKRAS open. And, you will be surprised, when Hindus think about CHAKRAS, seven CHAKRAS open; when Buddhists, five -- only five -- two simply disappear; because Buddhists talk about five CHAKRAS, and Hindus talk about seven. And there are tantricas who talk about nine!

Forget all about your imaginations; otherwise you will be trapped by your mind. If you see something, remember, it is imagination. If you feel something, remember, it is imagination. If you experience something, remember, it is imagination. When the experiencer is left alone without any experience, then there is no imagination. When the knower is left and there is nothing to know, then there is no imagination. When there is pure awareness without any content, then there is truth. And Kabir insists: "Put all imagination away.... "

God is not an experience, God is not an object. God is the very experiencer within you. You cannot see God. God is the one who is seeing through you. You cannot see God; you cannot reduce him to an object. You cannot put him in front of you; otherwise God will be separate from you. No, God cannot be experienced. And those who claim that they have experienced God are imagining things deluded. You cannot experience God! You can be God, but you cannot experience God. Because you are God, how can you experience God? God is not separate from you.

So God is when all imagination is brushed aside and only experiencing remains, just the light -- not falling on anything -- without any content -- you just are, just isness, being.

"... AND STAND FAST IN THAT WHICH YOU ARE." Don't go anywhere in imagination. Stand fast in that which you are, and you will know what God is. Knowing yourself, you will know God. Knowing the knower, you will know God. God never comes as an object of knowledge. He is your consciousness, he is your very being.

Existence does not produce people who are unworthy...

It is simply a conditioning that you are unworthy.

Nobody is unworthy.

Existence does not produce people who are unworthy.

Existence is not unintelligent. If existence produces so many unworthy people, then the whole responsibility goes to existence. Then it can be definitely concluded that existence is not intelligent, that there is no intelligence behind it, that it is an unintelligent, accidental materialist phenomenon and there is no consciousness in it.

Existence is intelligent, that existence is immensely conscious.

It is the same existence which creates Gautam Buddhas.

It cannot create unworthy people.

You are not unworthy.

Unworthiness is a false idea imposed on you by those who want you to be a slave for your whole life.

You can drop it just right now.

Existence gives the same sun to you as to Gautam Buddha, the same moon as to Zarathustra, the same wind as to Mahavira, the same rain as to Jesus -- it makes no difference, it has no idea of discrimination. For existence, Gautam Buddha, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Bodhidharma, Kabir, Nanak or you are just the same.

The only difference is that Gautam Buddha did not accept the idea of being unworthy, he rejected the idea. It was easy for him to reject it -- he was the prince of a great kingdom, the only son of the king, and the king was thought to be almost a god. So he had no idea of unworthiness.

But what about Kabir? What about Raidas the shoemaker? What about Gora the potter? These poor people were burdened by the society with the idea that they were unworthy, but they rejected it.

In Kabir's life there were clearcut examples. Kabir lived his whole life in Kashi. For centuries Hindus have believed that to die in Kashi is the greatest thing you can do in life, because for one who dies in Kashi, his paradise is guaranteed. It does not matter what kind of man he was, whether he was a murderer, a thief, a saint or a sinner -- these things are all irrelevant. His dying in Kashi erases everything and he becomes qualified for paradise.

And Kabir lived his whole life in Kashi, and when he was going to die he said, "Take me out of Kashi to the other side, to the small village." Just on the other side of the Ganges was a small village.

His disciples said, "Are you mad or something? People come to Kashi, the whole of Kashi is full of people who have come here to die. You have lived your whole life in Kashi, what kind of nonsense is this? And the village you are pointing to is a condemned village; people say whoever dies there is born again as a donkey."

But Kabir said, "I will go to that village, and I will die in that village. I want to enter paradise on my own worth, not because of Kashi.

And I know my worth."

They had to take him. Against their will they had to take him to the other side, and he died there.

This man is so certain of his worth.

Drop the idea of unworthiness, it is simply an idea. And with the dropping of it, you are under the sky -- there is no question of doors, everything is open, all directions are open. That you are is enough to prove that existence needs you, loves you, nourishes you, respects you.

The idea of unworthiness is created by the social parasites. Drop that idea.

And be grateful to existence -- because it only creates people who are worthy, it never creates anything which is worthless.

It only creates people who are needed.

Pitfalls of the Seeker 6: Don’t wait for a miracle...

Don’t wait for a miracle. It really doesn’t matter how you define miracle—whether it is the sudden appearance of perfect love, a cure for a life-threatening disease, anointment from a great spiritual leader, or permanent and everlasting bliss. A miracle is letting God do all the work; it separates the supernatural world from this world, with the expectation that one day the supernatural world will notice you. Since there is only one reality, your task is to break through boundaries of division and separation. Watching and waiting for a miracle keeps the boundaries up. You are ever at a remove from God, connected to him by wishful thinking.

Life consists of small things, but if you can bring the quality of cheerfulness to small things, the total is tremendous.

So don't wait for anything great to happen. Great things happen -- it is not that they don't -- but don't wait for the something great to happen. It happens only when you start living small, ordinary, day-to-day things, with a new mind, with new freshness, with new vitality, with new enthusiasm. Then by and by you accumulate, and that accumulation one day explodes into sheer joy.

But one never knows when it will happen. One has just to go on collecting pebbles on the shore. The totality becomes the great happening. When you collect one pebble, it is a pebble. When all the pebbles are together, suddenly they are diamonds. That's the miracle of life. So you need not think about these great things.

There are many people in the world who miss because they are always waiting for something great. It can't happen. It happens only through small things: eating, taking your breakfast, walking, taking your bath, talking to a friend, just sitting alone looking at the sky or lying on your bed doing nothing. These small things are what life is made of. This is the very stuff of life.

So do everything cheerfully and then everything becomes a miracle.

Pitfalls of the Seeker 5: Don’t make this a self-improvement project.

Don’t make this a self-improvement project. Self-improvement is real. People get stuck in bad places that they can learn to get out of. Depression, loneliness, and insecurity are tangible experiences that can be improved. But if you seek to reach God or enlightenment because you want to stop being depressed or anxious, if you want greater self-esteem or less loneliness, your search may never end. This area of understanding isn’t cut-and-dried. Some people feel tremendously self-improved as their awareness expands; but it takes a strong sense of self to confront the many obstacles and challenges that lie on the path. If you feel weak or fragile, you may feel weaker and more fragile when you confront the shadow energies within. Expanded awareness comes at a price—you have to give up your limitations—and for anyone who feels victimized, that limitation is often so stubborn that spiritual progress becomes very slow. To the extent that you feel any deep conflict inside yourself, a large hurdle stands before you on the path. The wise thing is to seek help at the level where the problem exists.

Somebody is standing on his head, somebody fasting, somebody forcing celibacy, somebody destroying his body, committing slow suicide, somebody lying on thorns and somebody standing in the sun, somebody sitting naked in the snow; all masochistic. If you are too mad after self-improvement, one day or other you will become a masochistic person. You will start torturing yourself. You will see death coming and nothing is happening.

There is no need to improve yourself. All self-improvement is a way to hell. All efforts to make something, somebody out of yourself, something of an ideal, are going to create more and more madness. Ideals are the base of all madness, and the whole humanity is neurotic because of too many ideals.

Animals are not neurotic because they don't have any ideals. Trees are not neurotic because they don't have any ideals. They are not trying to become somebody else. They are simply enjoying whatsoever they are.

So you are you. But somewhere deep down you want to become a Buddha or a Jesus, and then you go round in a circle which will be non-ending. Just see the point of it -- you are you. And the whole, or God, wants you to be you. That's why He has created you, otherwise He would have created you a better model. He wanted you to be here at this moment. He did not want Jesus to be here in place of you. And He knows better. The whole always knows better than the part.

So just accept yourself. If you can accept yourself, you have learned the greatest secret of life, and then everything comes on its own. Just be yourself. There is no need to pull yourself up. There is no need to be a different height other than you are already.

There is no need to have another face. Simply be as you are, and in deep acceptance of it, flowering happens and you go on becoming more and more yourself.

Pitfalls of the Seeker 4: Don’t set yourself a timetable

Don’t set yourself a timetable. I’ve met countless people who gave up on spirituality because they didn’t reach their goals fast enough. “I gave it ten years. What can I do? Life is only so long. I’m moving on.” More likely they devoted just one year or a month to being on the path, and then the weekend warriors fell away, discouraged by lack of results. The best way to avoid disappointment is not to set a deadline in the first place, although many people find this difficult to do without losing motivation. But motivation was never going to get them there in the first place. Discipline is involved, no doubt, in remembering to meditate regularly, to keep up Yoga class, to read inspiring texts, and to keep your vision before you. Getting into the spiritual habit requires a sense of dedication. But unless the vision is unfolding every day, you will inevitably get distracted. Rather than a timetable, give yourself support for spiritual growth. This can be in the form of a personal teacher, a discussion group, a partner who shares the path with you, regular retreats, and keeping a daily journal. You wie much less likely to fall prey to disappointment.

Meditation needs tremendous perseverance. It is not like a seasonal flower, it is more like a cedar of Lebanon; it needs time to grow roots. That is one of the reasons why the contemporary man is missing the inner treasure: he is always in a hurry. Never before was man in such a hurry. Speed was never such an addiction. People were moving slowly, living slowly; there was a kind of unhurriedness in their life. As technology has progressed, it has given more and more speed to man, and everything is moving faster and faster. We are becoming more and more intoxicated with speed; it is a drug. It does not allow us to grow anything that takes time, patience, perseverance. It does not allow us anything that needs the art of waiting...

Hence we are running outwards. It is possible with scientific technology to rush towards the moon, towards the stars one day; but to go in no scientific technology can be of any help. There nature has to take its own course. And one has to learn not to be so concerned with the result, with the goal. One should start enjoying the journey itself. One should start enjoying the trees by the side of the road, the birds singing, the sun rising, he clouds floating in the sky. One should move slowly, at one's natural pace. And one should not even be in competition with others because everybody has their own natural pace and everybody has a unique individuality.

People have become enlightened in strange situations, there is no way of saying how. You can repeat the situation, but you will not become enlightened. The situation becomes a repetitive ritual. You have bamboos, you can try -- hit a bamboo!

But it is not a question of the bamboo and the sound of a stone hitting it, it is the stillness that happened. And this stillness is surrounding you. You just have to be aware of its value, you have to be aware that you are always here, no cause, no reason, no timing.

Pitfalls of the Seeker 3: Don’t just follow someone else’s map

Don’t just follow someone else’s map. There was a time when I was certain that deep meditation using one specific mantra for the rest of my life was the key to reaching enlightenment. I was following a map laid down thousands of years ago by venerable sages who belonged to India’s greatest spiritual tradition. But caution is always required: If you follow someone else’s map, you could be training yourself in a fixed way of thinking. Fixed ways, even those devoted to spirit, are not the same as being free. You should glean teachings from all directions, keeping true to those that bring progress yet remaining open to changes in yourself.

Only a particular type of person can be helped by Mahavira's methods -- only the type who belongs to Mahavira's type can be helped. It is a very limited methodology. Mahavira attained to the holy fruit; he taught the same method by which he attained. Jesus had his own method, Mohammed had his own method. So no religion of the past could be universal because it belonged to a certain type and only that type could be benefited by it.

Hence one problem has arisen: you may be born in a Jaina family and you may not be of the same type which the Jaina method can help. Then you are in a difficulty; your whole life will be a wastage. You will try the method; it won't suit you -- and you will not change your method. You will think it is because of your past karmas that the method is not working, that it will take time. You will rationalize. You may be born in a Hindu family and Hindu methods may not work.

There are so many types of people in the world, and as the world has grown and people's consciousnesses have grown, more and more new types, more and more crossbreeds have come into existence which were never there before -- which never existed in Mahavira's time, which never existed in Krishna's time. There are many new types, crossbreeds. And in the future this is going to happen more and more; the world is becoming a small village.

You should glean teachings from all directions, keeping true to those that bring progress yet remaining open to changes in yourself.

Pitfalls of the Seeker 2: Don’t struggle to get there

Don’t struggle to get there. If there were a spiritual payoff at the end of the trail, like a pot of gold or the key to heaven, everyone would work as hard as possible for the reward. Any struggle would be worth it. But does it help a two-year-old to struggle to become three? No, because the process of child development unfolds from within. You don’t get a paycheck; you turn into a new person. The same is true for spiritual unfolding. It happens just as naturally as childhood development, but on the plane of awareness rather than in the realm of physiology.

You need not struggle. You need not even surrender! because surrender is the polar opposite of struggle. You have to be just in the middle. You have to be just in a state of non-doing, neither struggling nor surrendering. And suddenly you will be able to see the door is open. You have never gone anywhere else. You have always been in. Where else can you go? Inwardness is your nature. And then all is revealed like lightning. Suddenly darkness disappears and all is light.

The ego can exist only when it struggles, remember -- when it fights. And if I tell you, 'Kill three flies and you will become enlightened, you will not believe me. You will say, 'Three flies? There doesn't seem to be much to that. And I will become enlightened? That doesn't seem to be likely. If I say you will have to kill seven hundred lions, of course that looks more like it!

Pitfalls of the Seeker 1: Don’t know where you’re going

Don’t know where you’re going. Spiritual growth is spontaneous. The big events come along unexpectedly, and so do the small ones. A single word can open your heart; a single glance can tell you who you really are. Awakening doesn’t happen according to the plan. It’s much more like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing the finished picture in advance. The Buddhists have a saying, “If you meet the Buddha on the path, kill him,” which means if you’re following a spiritual script written in advance, bury it. All you can imagine in advance are images, and images are never the same as the goal.

Joshu used to say to his disciples,'If you utter Buddha's name, go and rinse your mouth immediately.' Joshu also used to say,'If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him immediately.' And he used to worship Buddha every day.

Ordinarily Zen looks puzzling, but it is clear-cut. It is following Buddha. When Joshu says,'If you meet the Buddha on the way kill him,' he is a right disciple because that was Buddha's essential message. When Buddha was dying, his last utterance in this world was,'APPO DEEPO BHAVA' -- 'Be a light unto yourself.' Don't follow anybody. Anand was crying, weeping because Buddha was leaving the body and he said to Buddha,'You are leaving and I have not yet become enlightened. What about me? What will happen to me? The world will be absolutely dark for me -- you were the light. And now you are going. Have compassion on us.' Buddha opened his eyes and said,'APPO DEEPO BHAVA. Be a light unto yourself, Anand, nobody can be a light for you.'

When Joshu says,'Kill the Buddha if you meet him on the way,' he is a true follower of Buddha. In Zen, following is very, very delicate. Great intelligence will be needed if you want to be a follower of Zen. It is very easy to be a Christian or a Hindu; it is very mathematical. To follow Zen it is very, very delicate and poetic -- because the very following means not following; because that is the message of the Zen Masters, don't follow.

that’s the way we do things around here...

Here's an experiment that involved 5 monkeys, a cage, a banana, a ladder and a water hose. Tell me what you think.

The 5 monkeys were locked in a cage, after which a banana was hung from the ceiling with, fortunately for the monkeys (or so it seemed…), a ladder placed right underneath it.

Of course, immediately, one of the monkeys raced towards the ladder, intending to climb it and grab the banana. However, as soon as he started to climb, the researcher sprayed the climbing monkey with ice-cold water. In addition, however, he would also spray the other four monkeys…

When a second monkey tried to climb the ladder, the researcher again sprayed the monkey with ice-cold water, and applied the same treatment to its four fellow inmates; likewise for the third climber and the fourth one. They all learned their lesson about how things work: they were not going to climb the ladder again – banana or no banana.

But the experiment did not stop there. In order to watch what happened, the researcher replaced one of the old monkeys with a new one. As expected, the new monkey spotted the banana, thinking “why don’t these idiots go get it?!” and started climbing the ladder. Then, however, it got interesting: the other four monkeys, familiar with the cold-water treatment, ran towards the new guy – and beat him up. The new guy, blissfully unaware of the cold-water history, got the message: no climbing up the ladder in this cage – banana or no banana.

When the researcher replaced a second old monkey with a new one, the events repeated themselves – new monkey ran towards the ladder; other monkeys beat him up; new monkey does not attempt to climb again – with one notable detail: the first new monkey, who had never received the cold-water treatment himself (and didn’t even know anything about it), with equal vigor and enthusiasm, joined in the beating of the new guy on the block.

When the researcher replaced a third monkey, the same thing happened; likewise for the fourth until, eventually, all the monkeys had been replaced and none of the ones in the cage had any experience or knowledge of the cold-water treatment.

Fianlly, a 5th new monkey was introduced into the cage. It ran toward the ladder only to get beaten up by the others. But ask yourself this: why would these all new monkeys beat each other up over the banana, when none of them ever experienced the cold water treatment? Probably like human because they learned: "that’s the way we do things around here”…

You can be a saint outwardly and still be the same being inside...

There is nothing like the Ten Commandments in the East. An overly moral concept is not there. So the problems in the East are different from the West. With people from the West, guilt is the problem. Deep down they feel guilty. Even those who have revolted feel guilty. It is a psychological problem, concerned more with the mind and less with the being.

First, their guilt has to be released. That is why the West had to develop psychoanalysis and confession. They were not developed in the East because they were never needed. In the West you have to confess. Only then can you get free from the guilt that is deep inside. Or you have to go through psychoanalysis so that the guilt is thrown out. But it is never thrown out permanently, because the concept of sin remains. The guilt will accumulate again. So psychoanalysis and confession can only be a temporary help. You have to confess again and again. They are only temporary helps against something that has been accepted. The root of the disease -- the concept of sin -- has been accepted.

In the East it it not a question of psychology, it is a question of being. It is not a question of mental health. Rather, it is a question of spiritual growth. You have to grow spiritually, to be more aware of things. You do not have to change your behavior, but to change your consciousness. Then the behavior follows.

Christianity is more concerned with your behavior. But behavior is just peripheral. The question is not what you do; the question is what you are. If you go on changing what you are doing, you are not really changing anything. You remain the same. You can be a saint outwardly and still be the same being inside.

Jainas have not created any meditative techniques either. They have only created different formulas: Do that. Do that. Don't do this.... The whole concept is centered around behavior. A Jaina monk is ideal as far as his behavior is concerned, but as far as his inner being is concerned he is very poor. He goes on behaving just like a puppet. That is why Jainism has become a dead thing.

Buddhism is not dead in the same way because a different emphasis is there. The ethical part of Buddhism is just a consequence of the meditative part. If behavior has to be changed, it is just as a help to meditation. In itself, it is meaningless. In Christianity and Jainism it is meaningful in itself. If you are doing good, then you are good. For Buddhism this is not the case. You have to be transformed inwardly.

Doing good can help, it can become a part, but meditation is the center.

So of the three, only Buddhists have developed deep meditation. Everything else in Buddhism is just a help -- not significant. You can even discard it. If you can meditate without any other help, then you can discard the rest.

But Hinduism is even deeper. That is why Hinduism could develop in so many different dimensions, like tantra. Even what you call sin can be used by tantra. Hinduism is, in a way, very healthy -- but chaotic of course. Anything healthy is bound to be chaotic; it cannot be systematized.