Union of
Overflowing Beings
M
arriage is
the union of two hearts pulsating with love, two minds full of understanding
and two beings overflowing bliss.
We go on meeting
each moment. However the union that brings ecstasy rarely ever happens. In the
process one forgets the grace and magnanimity that love and its awareness
brings. Look all around there is harmony, a synergistic harmony in the
existence. However all our meetings happen on the surface? We meet and yet
still there is no meeting. How can a broken heart dissolve into another broken
one? Such is life! This we call marriage.
AadmI AadmI se imlta hE
aadamii
aadamii se milataa hai
bhuul jaataa
huu.N mai.n sitam us ke
aaj kyaa baat
hai ke phuulo.n kaa
mil ke bhii
jo kabhii nahiin milataa
Jigar Mooradabadi
Every moment man meets another one.
I have chosen this
composition of Jigar Mooradabadi as the flowers to create a garland of Maraqba and while taking you through the
realm of tawwazjoh of the master explain the essential man. It is the essential
prerequisite for inner harmony. When emotions are harmonized within you
overflow it in the outer world. You share your bliss with your partners and
anyone you come in contact. This is essential for human relationship.
Nothing can be said about man because nothing exists like man in a
man. A few are man number one, a few are man number two, and a few are man
number three. Entire creation plants, animals all live in their nature. It is
only the man who does not live in his nature. No animal tries to be something
else. But man always pretends to be something different – indeed false.
These first three are simple
to understand because you all belong to these types. The man who lives in his body is man number one. You can find him
all around. Instead he lives for the body. He does not eat to survive. He survives to eat. That is the number one.
Number two man is emotional. He lives through his emotions – always excited
or depressed, moving up and down. When people come to me and I ask them how
things are going they say, ‘Up and down.’ This is number two men. Sometimes he
feels very good, euphoric, and other times he is as dull as death. Sometimes he
is in hell and sometimes in heaven. Sometimes laughing very beautifully and
other times lamenting.
This second type of man is
also available all around. You need not go very far. He may be within you. I came across a word
and its biography in the dictionary. The word ’maudlin’ is beautiful.
It is the second type of man:
emotional, always ready to weep and cry, sentimental. And when I looked into
the etymology of the word, it was really a discovery. It came from ‘Mary Magdalene’.
You must have seen pictures
of Mary Magdalene washing Jesus’ feet with her tears. With tear flowing
profusely she went on washing the feet.
‘Magdalene’ by and by became ‘maudlin’. That is the second type of man.
The third type of man is intellectual. He lives through his intellect. He is only a
head. He has no body. He has no heart. He is a great controller from the head.
He goes on manipulating his heart, body and everything through the head. He is
the scholar, the ascetic, the pundit, the man of knowledge, memory, logic,
philosophy. This third type of man controls the whole world.
But these three types are all
on the same level. There is no difference. These three types of men are
available everywhere. The third type exists more as male. The second type
exists more as female. And the first type exists as both. And these three types
represent you as well. You cannot find
them in their purity. They are mixed.
If you can find a man who has
these three things absolutely separate, he is the fourth type of man. Such a
man is the yogi, the fakir, or the mystic. He has separated his being into
different layers. Now, when he is in the body he is in the body. Then he does
not allow emotions to interfere with it. Or the head to control it! When he is
in his emotions he does not allow his head or the body to interfere in it. He
is not a mixture. He is not adulterated. Everything is clean and crystal clear
in him. You can rely on him. When he thinks he thinks. Then he does not allow his emotions to
interfere. In that case emotions become
clouds. And they do not allow clear
thinking.
This is the reason women
cannot think as clearly as men. They belong more to the second type - Mary Magdalene. They are so much full of emotions. I have
very rarely come across a woman whom I could say is intelligent in the real
sense of the word. It is almost impossible because whatsoever she thinks in
fact she never thinks. Her thinking emanates out of emotions. Deep down is
emotion. She ‘emotionalizes’ her thinking, and reason simply follows like a
shadow.
She is never unprejudiced.
She cannot be just a watcher, a judge, a spectator. No certainly not! She will
get involved. A man can be a watcher. That is why more scientists, more
philosophers, more logicians are men. Except for Madame Curie, women have not
produced anything. And I suspect that Madame Curie must have had more male
hormones than any other women.
They are not like three
layers, one on top of another. Instead these are divisions on the same plane,
and now these have got mixed. They have to be separated. The fourth type is the
man who has separated his being. Who has
assigned to each center its own work? Unless he does this everything is
intermixed and nothing functions well.
Your sex center is a body
center. You can fall in love with a woman of a different religion caste or
creed. Emotions do not know this. A Hindu can fall in love with a Muslim. Now,
emotions do not know but the reason knows that she is of a different religion.
The body knows nothing. Emotions are not rational, but the mind
reasons it out. And the mind will immediately interfere. It will say look
somewhere else. This woman is not for you. She is a Muslim and you are a Hindu.
How can you marry a Muslim woman? Or, she is so poor and you are so rich. How
can you marry such a poor woman? What will people say? The head interferes with
the emotion.
Now you suppress it and you
try to fall in love with a woman who is of your own caste. But no one can fall
in love with effort. With forced effort it can at the most be a marriage, never
a love affair. It will always be impotent. It will not have that intensity.
You go on continuously interfering.
The body says: ‘I am hungry,’ but you say: ‘This is not the time.’ When the
body says: ‘I am not hungry,’ you go on forcing food into it because you say:
‘Now is lunch time and there can be no other time. So this is the time and you
have to eat now.’
Gurdjieff used to say that
all these three centers are intermixed. And that is why you are so confused. No
clarity exists in you. Everything is confusion and a smoke. No flame exists in
you.
So the first thing Gurdjieff
used to do was to bring each center to its own functioning. Stop trespassing.
Let the body function as the body. Let the emotion function as the emotion
alone. And also let the head function as the head. And do not allow them to
interfere with each other. Otherwise you will be a total chaos. You will not
have a center. Then you will live in confusion and you will die in confusion.
You will be a sheer wastage.
As the journey continues it
is indeed the search for the essential man. The man of awareness! The fourth
type of man comes into existence when the centers start functioning in their
own territory and do not trespass. This takes long effort. The fourth type of
man will be rare for you to find. However in some yogis and in some Sufi
mystics you can find this fourth type of man. Still the fourth type exists.
The fifth type is still rare.
The fourth simply sorts out the three levels, the three layers, and makes them
function according to their original nature with no interference, no outside
domination either.
The fifth man becomes aware
of it. The fourth man can work without awareness. The fourth man can work
through a teacher, or through a discipline, or through a methodology and sort
them out. Much awareness is not needed. A little understanding will do.
The fifth type is the man of
awareness. He becomes aware of the whole phenomenon – the three different
centers and the efforts of the fourth as well to bring them to their own
territories.
The fifth becomes a watcher,
a witness. It is very rare to find a man of the fifth category. Ouspensky,
Gurdjieff’s greatest disciple, belongs to this fifth category. But he is only
aware – awareness will sometimes be there and will other times be lost.
He cannot be constantly aware
because for a constant awareness an integrated center is needed. This is
lacking in the fifth type of man. This is the reason Ouspensky went astray. He
became aware, but he had no integrated center in him, so he was aware only
sometimes. When he was aware, he was one man, but when he was not aware he was
a totally different one.
He became a good teacher but
he could not become a master because a master needs total awareness.
Twenty-four hours’ awareness! Awareness even in sleep!
The sixth type of man is very,
very rare. Centuries pass, only then this sixth type of man becomes available.
The sixth type of man is one who is not only aware but who has now become
centered as well. He has attained to his center – the being.
The fifth type of man
watches. The sixth type of man watches from an eternal center. This is the
difference between the fifth and the sixth type. The sixth type has attained to
a tower inside. And his awareness never wavers. His inner flame remains aflame
unwavering.
The seventh type of man is
absolute mystery, extraordinarily ordinary. Simple, but as mysterious as is
possible! A Buddha, a Lao Tzu, a Gurdjieff, a Mohammad they are all the seventh
type of man. But about them nothing can be said.
People who belong to the
first three categories are almost alike.
People who belong to the
fourth category will be more or less alike. People who belong to the fourth
category will be different from the first three categories. However they will
not be much different from each other. Yogis, fakirs, are very different from
the first three categories, but very similar to each other.
The man of the fifth category
starts becoming unique. He becomes something rare. You will find that two
persons of the fifth category are as different as possible. The sixth type of
person is absolutely integrated. He has become absolutely unique. And with the
seventh all the possibilities of uniqueness have been achieved.
The seventh type is the
highest peak possible. Indeed it is indefinable and unknowable through the
intellect! There is only one way to know the seventh type, Hindus call it
Satsang. And Muslims call this as Sohbat or
association or communion.
Transformation happens when
you are in the presence of that type of man. If you are fortunate to find a
seventh type of man, just allow his being to penetrate your being. Simply
become the receiving ends. And then you will come to a feeling of what it is.
It is the greatest diamond of being in the world.
This growth and transformation is the essential
prerequisite for inner harmony and transcendence.
Anima
Animus
E
ach individual carries within anima
and animus or yin and yang or Shiva and Shakti or male and female energies. The
two energies need to neutralize one another for you to attain transcendence
beyond biology. In the absence you remain engrossed in your biology.
Human body comes into existence as
interaction between ovum and sperm – the male and female energies. With the
interaction of two energies the body-mind realm manifests. This is not on your
part. Your parents interact at the level of biology and as interaction body is
formed.
Now you need to interact at the level
of biology consciously and meditatively to attain to transcendence. Through sex
your body was born one day and through sex as well one day you go beyond
biology and emotions as well.
Master Lu-Tsu said: that which exists
through itself is called the way (tao). Tao has neither name nor shape. It is
the one essence of the one primal spirit. Essence and life cannot be seen. They
are contained in the light of heaven. The light of heaven cannot be seen. It is
contained in the two eyes.
The great one is the term given to
that which has nothing above it. The secret of the magic of life consists in
using action in order to attain non-action.
The golden flower is the light. One
uses the golden flower as a symbol. The phrase ‘the lead of the water-region
has but one taste’ refers to it.
The work on the circulation of the
light depends entirely on the backward flowing movement so that the thoughts
are gathered together. The heavenly heart lies between sun and moon.
The book of the yellow castle says: ‘in
the square inch field of the square foot house life can be regulated.’ in the
middle of the square inch dwells the splendor. In the purple hall of the city
of jade dwells the god of utmost emptiness and life.
Therefore when the light circulates,
the energies of the whole body appear before its throne, as, when a holy king
has established the capital and has laid down the fundamental rules of order,
all the states approach with tribute; or as, when the master is quiet and calm,
men-servants and maids obey his orders of their own accord, and each does his
work.
Therefore you only have to make the
light circulate: that is the deepest and most wonderful secret. The light is
easy to move, but difficult to fix. If it is made to circulate long enough,
then it crystallizes itself. It is the condition of which it is said: ‘silently
thou fliest upward in the morning.’
In carrying out this fundamental
principle you need to seek for no other methods, but must only concentrate your
thoughts on it. By collecting the thoughts one can fly and will be born in
heaven.
The golden flower is the elixir of
life. Although it works very accurately, it is yet so fluid that it needs
extreme intelligence and clarity, and the most complete absorption and
tranquility. People without this highest degree of intelligence and understanding
do not find the way. People without this utmost capacity for absorption and
tranquility cannot keep fast hold of it.
I have heard this parable...
Once there was a very rich magician
who had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean.
He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the
pasture where his sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered
into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on, and above all they ran away, for
they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and skins and this they did not
like.
At last the magician found a remedy.
He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were
immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned, that,
on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant.
Secondly, he suggested that the
magician was a Good Master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do
anything in the world for them. And in the third place, he suggested to them
that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen
just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think
about it. Further, the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep
at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they
were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were
magicians.
And after this all his cares and worries
about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited
the time when the magician would require their flesh and their skins.
George Gurdjieff loved this parable
very much. His whole philosophy is contained in this small parable. And this
parable represents man in the ordinary state of unconsciousness. It is one of
the most beautiful illustrations of man as he is.
Man is a machine. Man is not born to
be a machine, but man lives like a machine and dies like a machine. Man has the
seed of a great flowering of consciousness, man has the possibility to become
God, but that does not happen. It does not happen because man has been
hypnotized – by the society, the state, the organized church, and the vested
interests. The society needs slaves and man can remain a slave only if he is
not allowed to grow to his utter most flowering. The society needs your flesh and
your skins and naturally, nobody likes it. Hence, the whole process of
socialization, and civilization, is nothing but a deep hypnosis.
Man is being hypnotized from the
moment he is born. He is being hypnotized to believe that the society exists in
his favor, for his good. That is utterly wrong. He is being hypnotized to
believe that he is immortal. He is not yet. He has to discover that which is
immortal within. He can be, but he is not. And if the hypnosis persists he will
never be immortal.
You live only as a mortal one,
because you live in the body. The body is going to die. That which is born is
bound to die. Birth is the beginning of the body and death the end. Do you know
anything in you which is more than the body? Have you experienced anything
higher than the body, deeper than the body? Have you seen anything in you that
were even before you were born? And also will be after the body is no more. If
you have seen that, then you are immortal. If you know your real face, the face
that you had before you were born, then you know you will be there after death
too; otherwise not.
Man can be immortal one. However he
lives surrounded by death because of his identification with the body. The
society does not allow you to know anything beyond the body. The society is
interested only in your body. Body can be put to use. However your soul is
dangerous. And once you have experienced the immortal within then your life moves
differently.
A man of soul is always dangerous
because a man of soul is a free man. He cannot be reduced to slavery. A man who
has an immortal soul in him has a deeper commitment to existence itself. He
does not care a bit about the man-made structures of society, civilization and
culture. These are prison cells for him. He does not exist as a Christian or a
Hindu or a Muslim. He cannot be part of a crowd. He exists as an individual.
The body is part of a crowd, your
soul is not. Your soul is deeply individual. Its flavor is that of freedom,
harmony and oneness with existence.
But your soul cannot be put to any
use in the market-place. The society needs only your body. And it is very
dangerous for the society if you start striving for the soul, because then your
interest changes. You turn from the outer to inner dimension.
The society is outside. The society wants
you to remain an extrovert, interested in money, power, prestige, and all that,
so that your energy goes on moving outwards. If you start moving inwards, that
means you have become a drop-out, you are no more part of the game that is
being played on the outside. You do not belong to it. You start diving deep
within your own being. And there is the source of immortality.
The society prevents you from going
inwards. And the best way is to give you a false idea that you are going
inwards.
The magician told the sheep that they
were lions, suggested to them that they were immortals, hypnotized them into
believing that they were not only men but great magicians.
When you go to a church you are not
going inwards. When you go to the temple you are not going inwards. These are
simply devises not to go inwards.
But the society has hypnotized you to
believe that ‘If you want to go inwards, go to the church.’ But the church is
as much outside as anything else. The society has hypnotized you to believe
that ‘If you want to go inwards, go to the priest.’
And the priest is an agent of the
state and the society. The priest has always been against the mystics, because
if you go to a mystic you will start moving inwards and away from the priest.
A mystic lives in a totally different
way. His energy moves in a different gestalt. His river moves inwards. So one
who comes to a mystic falls in tune with him and will start moving inwards
naturally, simply, spontaneously. That is the whole purpose of being with a
Master, with a mystic. Ultimately he attains to harmony within. And when such a
person enters into marriage certainly he will attain fruition through this
union as well.
The flower represents totality. The
flower represents the ultimate expression of the potential, the actualization of
the potential. And not only that the flower represents the beauty, grandeur, and
the splendor of being.
And, unless you have become a
thousand-petal lotus or a Golden Flower nothing is going to happen. And unless
you attain to meditation and experience that which never takes birth or dies
you will know the ways of relating.
Remember you have to go far. Remember
that you have to get out of the traps that the society has put around you.
Remember that you have not yet done the work for which you have come to the earth.
Remember you are just a seed, not yet the fruition - a soul.
THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER is
very ancient – possibly one of the most ancient treatises in the world
certainly twenty-five centuries old, and the possibility is that it is older than
that. This treatise is also a great synthesis of all the great religions. That
is rare, and unique.
The Bible belongs to the Christians,
the Talmud belongs to the Jews, the Vedas belong to the Hindus, the Dhammapada
to the Buddhists, and the Tao Te Ching to the Taoists. But this small book, THE
SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, belongs to no one in particular instead it belongs
to all.
It is deeply based in Taoist
teachings. It is a flowering of the Taoist approach to life and existence. But
it is not only that – Zarathustra has played a role. Zarathustra’s teachings
have been incorporated in it Buddhist teachings have also been incorporated in
it. And a certain esoteric school of Christians, the Nestorians, they have also
played their part. So Christianity and Judaism also have become part of it.
It is one of the most synthetic
approaches. It combines all that is beautiful in all the traditions of the
world. For centuries it was only transmitted orally, and the book remained
esoteric. It was not available to the public because it has something very
secret to teach. It was available only to the disciples.
The Master would tell to the disciple
only when the time was ripe, because it gives you such a potential secret that
if you do not understand rightly, if you do something wrong with it, effects
are bound to be harmful. It has to be understood rightly, and it has to be worked
at only in the presence of a Master. It is a powerful method it is as powerful
as atomic energy. Certainly it transforms you to very core.
Now, the secrets of atomic energy are
kept hidden from the public. Once they start leaking out to the public there is
going to be great danger. If people can manufacture atom bombs privately, there
is bound to be great chaos. Great secrecy is maintained about atomic research.
Exactly in the same way this book
teaches you one of the most potential methods of inner explosion. For centuries
the secrets were guarded and was only given to the disciples in intimacy. And the
people who followed this particular esoteric school resisted all temptations to
write the book. In fact, all the religions of the world have long resisted
writing their spiritual teachings.
There is esoteric beauty when
something is transferred really. It is alive because the Master is behind it.
It is not a dead word. Instead the word has soul, and wings too.
The experience of the Master supports
it because he is a witness to it. It is not just speculation, or a philosophy, instead
something existential, experienced, and lived.
And the Master has journeyed through
the path. He knows the dangers and pitfalls of the path. And not only that, he
has known the points at which people go astray, and he will take every care so
that the disciple cannot go astray.
The closer you come to the truth, the
more is the possibility of going astray, because when you come closer to the
truth, you can become very egoistic: that ‘Now I know,’ that ‘Now I am.’ And if
the ego exploits the situation you will fall back into your old dark valley.
And you will lose the peak.
When you come closer to the truth, a
great desire arises to share it with people. But you have not attained it in
its wholeness. And it is dangerous to share half-truths because half-truths are
more dangerous and powerful than lies. Lies are impotent. Sooner or later
people will themselves find that it is a lie. But the half-truth can persist for
centuries, can have effects for centuries.
Nobody can reach the ultimate through
the half-truth, and the person who travels half the way will belong neither to
this world nor to the other. He will be in a limbo, and that is a very strange
situation to be in. You lose the old and you do not gain the new. You become a
chaos.
The old order is gone and the new has
not happened. You become a cloud of confusion. Rather than becoming clearer,
more alive, and more light-full, your life becomes a conflict between two polarities.
You are pulled apart. Then you start falling into pieces.
Half of you belong to the earth and the
next half of you belong to the sky. Now you are nowhere. Now you are nobody.
This can create madness. So, for centuries The Secret of the Golden Flower was
only conveyed orally.
Secondly, with an oral tradition the book
remains always alive. That is how it became a synthesis. Basically it was born
in the Taoist climate of China. But then Bodhidharma reached China – a new
master with a new message from India, Buddha’s message. And the people who were
following The Secret of the Golden Flower were very open people. They were not
part of any established church.
They could immediately see that
Bodhidharma also had it – it was so apparent, and manifest. Therefore they
allowed Bodhidharma’s teachings to be part of their teaching. And the same
happened with Zoroastrian Masters, with Nestorian Christians. Again and again
something came to China, and if it was worthwhile, it was incorporated.
An oral teaching remains alive,
growing, and flowing like a river. New streams of water come and become part of
it. Once a teaching is written, then it cannot incorporate anything anymore.
Then it becomes rigid, it loses fluidity, it becomes dead. It is a corpse. This
is what is happening with most of the written scriptures around the world.
The same now has happened with The
Secret of the Golden Flower. It is not growing. For centuries it has not grown.
Since it has been written it has not grown.
But the first thing to remember is
that you have been hypnotized, and you have to go through a dehypnotizing
process. Remember that you have been conditioned and you have to be
unconditioned. Remember that death is coming. Don’t think that it is not going
to happen today; it can happen any moment.
In fact, all that happens always
happens now. The seed dies now the bud becomes the flower now, the bird starts
calling now. All that ever happens only in the space made available by NOW,
this moment. Nothing ever happens in the past, and nothing ever happens in the
future. All that happens always happens in the present – that is the only way
for things to happen because the present is the only time there is.
Past is just your memory and future
is just your imagination. But you have been hypnotized to live in the past, and
in the future too. Choose either past or future, but no society allows you to
live in the present.
Christians and Hindus and Muslims – all
condition you to live in the past. Their golden age was in the past.
Communists, socialists, fascists – they condition you to live in the future, their
golden age is in the future. The utopia is coming. When the revolution comes,
then you will be able to really live, then there will be a golden age.
Either you are taken to the past,
which is false, or to the future, which is again false. No society tells you to
live in the present, in the here-now. To be spiritual or to be a real seeker
means to live here-now. And there is no other life. But for that you will have
to de-automatize yourself, you will have to become a man - more conscious and
not a machine that is not conscious.
But one has to live each moment,
whether it is of life, of love, of anger, of death. Whatsoever it is one has to
live each moment as consciously as possible. Only then you will know how
beautiful death is. It is so beautiful because it brings a new life to you.
But this is how many lives in dreams,
in imagination, and in projections. This is how you live. And this is not the
way to live this beautiful, tremendously valuable life! This is sheer wastage!
You have to become more attentive to the moment. You have to gather your
consciousness. Consciousness is your treasure, and all the methods that have
been invented, devised, down the centuries are nothing but ways to create more
consciousness in you, to create more fire in you, to make your life a passionate
affair, and a flame.
People are living dull lives,
absentmindedly, inattentively. How can you live with so much inattention around
you? Inattention is darkness, attention is light. And this treatise will teach
you how to create more light in you, so that one day... the Golden Flower
blossoms in you. Only such a person knows the art of living and will be capable
of infusing life into any person or relation or situation.
Two psychiatrists met on the street.
‘You are feeling fine,’ said one. ‘How am I doing?’
People are asking each other. Nobody
knows how they are doing they are looking into each other’s eyes, gathering
information about themselves from others. That is why the opinion of others has
become so important. If somebody says you are a fool, you become angry. Why? Or
you become sad. Why?
You are shattered. You were thinking
you are a wise man, because others had told you that you are wise. It was the
opinion of others that you depended on. Now somebody else says you are a fool.
He can easily shatter your wisdom, very easily. He has thrown a stone and you
had made a palace with playing cards. Now all is shattered. That’s why one becomes
so angry, so enraged, so violent, and one becomes so worried, anxious.
You are continuously looking for what
others are thinking, because you know only that which others think about you,
you do not know anything about yourself. Now what kind of situation is this? If
I cannot know about myself, who else can know about me? From the outside nobody
can watch me I am not available that way. From the outside only my body can be
watched. From the inside I can know my consciousness.
Even when you stand before a mirror
you see only your body, you cannot see your consciousness in the mirror. Even
you cannot see it in the mirror – your own consciousness. You have to see it
directly. It is never mirrored, it is never reflected in anything; it is
invisible. You have to close your eyes and be it. And that is the only way of
knowing it.
But people live so unconsciously.
They simply live by the opinion of others. What others say becomes their soul.
Others can take it away any moment. People remain beggars.
Have you ever known anything about
yourself directly? Have you ever encountered yourself directly without bringing
the opinion of others into it? If you have not done it, you have not yet lived.
Life starts only by encountering oneself, by seeing oneself directly,
immediately. Life exists only when you are capable of seeing yourself as you
are, not as others think about you. What can they think about you? What can
they say about you?
They can watch your behavior, they
cannot watch you. If you want to watch yourself, only you can do that, nobody
else. It cannot be done by servants. It cannot be delegated to somebody else.
It cannot be done by the experts either. But we are so much interested in
others’ opinions because we are absolutely absent – there is nobody awake
inside. Deeply asleep, we are snoring inside.
Watch your own absent-mindedness.
Watching it will create attentiveness in you. Watch what is happening within
you: thoughts passing, memories arising, a cloud of anger, a dark night of
sadness, or a beautiful morning of joy. Watch all that passes in you. Become
more and more watchful. Slowly and slowly you will become an integrated
watchfulness. And the method taught by THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER is how
to become integrated in your inner light.
It can be learned only in intimate
contact with the Master. There is no other way of communicating it. It can only
be learned in a deep communion where the disciple and the Master meet, where
the disciple holds nothing back, where the disciple and the Master overlap,
where their consciousnesses merge into each other. Only in such a meeting,
communion, can Tao be conveyed.
Never be deceived by appearances.
Finally the water wins over the rock and the rock is destroyed and becomes sand
and is taken to the sea. The rock disappears finally – against the soft water.
The rock is masculine. It is the male
mind, the aggressive one. Water is feminine, soft, loving, and not aggressive
at all. But the non-aggressive wins. The water is always ready to surrender,
but through surrender it conquers – that is the way of the woman. The woman
always surrenders and conquers through it. And the man wants to conquer and the
ultimate result is just surrender and nothing else.
The tradition of THE SECRET OF THE
GOLDEN FLOWER IS said to have or ignited with Lu Yen. Lu Yen himself attributes
it to Master Kuan Yiu-Hsi for whom, according to tradition, Lao Tzu wrote down
his TAO TE CHING. Kuan means ’the Han-Ku pass’ hence he is called Master Kuan,
that is ‘Master of the Han-ku pass.’ And he must have been a great adept,
otherwise it would have been impossible to persuade Lao Tzu to write. His whole
life he had declined – he could not decline the invitation of this man. This
man must have had something that it was impossible even for Lao Tzu to say no to.
This is how the tradition of THE
GOLDEN FLOWER IS connected with Lao Tzu. But it did not start with Lao Tzu. Lao
Tzu himself says that whatsoever he is saying has been said before, again and
again, down the centuries. He is not bringing a new truth in the world. Instead
he is certainly bringing a new expression. It is always so. Truth is the same,
only expressions differ.
What Lao Tzu said is the same as what
Krishna had said before him. What Krishna said is the same as what Buddha said
later on. What Buddha has said is the same as Mohammed, as Jesus, as
Zarathustra have said although their expressions are so different that you will
need great intelligence to see to the very core. The structure is different,
the language is different, their ways of saying it are different; naturally,
because they are different persons, different individuals, with their own
uniqueness. But truth is neither new nor old; and wherever truth is, it is eternal.
The book, THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN
FLOWER, is one of the eternal sources where one can again become alive, one can
again find the door to the divine. It is for this reason I have included it as
prelude to the Secret of the Golden Flower in this book on marriage. The
understanding the secrets of the golden flower is essential for the fruition of
male-female relation as marriage.
A man can be brought into the garden,
and he may be unconscious. He may be drunk or he may be in a coma or under the
impact of alcohol. He can be brought into the garden. He is unconscious. The songs
of the birds will be heard by his ears, but he will not know. And the fragrance
of the flowers will come riding on the breeze to his nostrils, but he will not
know.
We are in Tao, because where else can
we be? To live is to be on the Way. To live is to live in God. To breathe is to
breathe in God. Where else can we be? But just as the fish lives in the ocean
and is completely oblivious of the ocean, we are living in Tao and are
completely oblivious of Tao. In fact, it is so obvious, that’s why we are so oblivious.
The fish knows the ocean so well
because it is born in it. It has never been out of it, the fish takes it for
granted, and hence the fish is not aware of it. We are on the Way, we are in
God, we live in Tao, through Tao, but we are not aware of it. The Tao exists,
because without the Tao trees will not grow, and stars will not move, and the
blood will not circulate, and the breath will not come in. Life will disappear.
Life is possible only if there is a
fundamental law holding it. Life is possible only if there is something that
supports it. Look at the immense order in existence. It is not a chaos, it is a
cosmos. What makes it a cosmos? Why is there so much harmony? There must be a
law that keeps the harmony going, flowing, keeps everything in accord. But we
don’t know about it. We don’t know. Anything about our own being, and we are
joined through our being with Tao.
It is the ocean of life that
surrounds us. It is within and with-out – the pure essence. It is existence, it
is the primal spirit. No name can contain it. All names are its name, and no
shape is particular to it because all shapes are Tao’s shape. Tao exists in
millions of forms. In the tree it is green in the flower it is red. In man it is
man, in fish it is fish. It is the same law. You can replace the word ‘Tao’ with
‘God’ and it will be the same. What Christians and Mohammedans call God,
Taoists call Tao, Buddhists call it Dharma, Jews used to call it Logos, but
they mean the same thing. No name can contain it, or it can be expressed by any
name.
Essence and life cannot be seen. They
are contained in the light of heaven. The light of heaven cannot be seen. It is
contained in the two eyes.
You can see the form, you can see the
body – the body is the form, the substance that surrounds the essence – but you
cannot see the essence. The essence is invisible to the eyes, unapproachable by
the senses. It has to be felt immediately, not through any media.
You see my body, I see your body – it
is through a medium. My eyes are telling me you are here. Your eyes are telling
you that I am here. But who knows? The eyes may be deceiving – they do deceive
sometimes. In the night, in the dark, you see a rope as if it were a snake. And
when you see it as a snake it affects you as a snake. You are afraid, you start
running. Or you can see in the desert an oasis which is not there, which is
only a projected phenomenon because you are so thirsty that you want it to be
there, so you create it there. Eyes deceive many times. So who knows?
If truth is known through a medium
then it will always remain suspect, doubtful. It cannot have any certainty. And
a truth which is not absolutely certain is not truth at all. The truth has to
be absolutely certain. It cannot be approximately certain. Then there is only
one way. It should be known without a medium. One should know it directly. One
should know it without any senses. And that is how it is known.
You have these two eyes. These two
eyes for the Taoist are very significant. Only modern science has been able to
see the truth of it. These two eyes are not only the visible eyes. These two
eyes represent the male and the female in you.
Now modern science says that the
brain of man is divided into two hemispheres, and one hemisphere is male, the
other is female. The right side of your mind is feminine, and the left side is
masculine. So your one eye represents the male in you, and your other eye
represents the female in you. And when your male and female meet inside you, that
meeting is what is called ‘heaven’ – that meeting, that inner communion of your
male and female.
Jesus says, ‘When your two eyes
become one there will be light.’ He is talking like a Taoist alchemist. When
your two eyes become one, there will be light. When your two eyes become one –
when both male and female disappear into each other – that is the ultimate
orgasmic experience. What you feel making love to a woman or to a man is only a
glimpse of it, a very fleeting glimpse. It is so momentary that by the time you
become aware of it, it is already gone. You become aware of it only in the
past, it is so fleeting. But it is a glimpse, a glimpse of the meeting of the
man and the woman.
This is an exterior meeting. It is a
miracle that it happens even for a single moment, but there is a deep possibility.
And that has been the work of Tantra, Tao, Yoga, and all the great secret
teachings of the world. It is to help you become aware of your feminine and
your masculine energies inside – what TANTRIKAS call Shiva and Shakti, and what
Taoists call ‘yin’ and ‘yang’. The polarity, the positive and negative in you,
the day and night in you – they have to meet there.
But unless they become one you will
not become aware of it. IT IS CONTAINED IN THE TWO EYES. But you cannot see it
unless they become one, then it is released. Then there is a great explosion of
light. Zarathustra calls it ‘explosion of fire’. Lao Tzu calls it ‘explosion of
light’. It is the same.
And when the two eyes, or two flames, or
these two hemispheres of your consciousness join together, are absolutely bridged
and you become one flame, that one flame is what Plotinus calls ‘the flight of the
alone to the alone’.
And if you can become that One, you
have become the great One. This is the Taoist way of saying something about God
without using the word ‘God’. If you become one, you have become God.
The secret of the magic of life
consists in using action in order to attain non-action.
Man represents action, woman
represents non-action. You have to use action to attain non-action. You have to
make effort to become effortless. You have to go and put in all your energies,
you have to become so active that nothing is left behind. All energy becomes
involved into that creativity, and then, suddenly, when all energy is involved,
there happens a transformation. Just as at a hundred degrees water evaporates,
action, when it becomes total, evaporates, and non-action is left behind.
First you have to learn how to dance,
and you have to put all your energies into dancing. And one day that strange
experience happens when suddenly the dancer disappears in the dance, and the dance
happens without any effort. Then it is inaction. first you have to learn action
to go into inaction. That is what meditation is all about.
The Golden Flower is a symbol. It is
the symbol when your energies are no more dual and have become one. Great light
is released, and the light is golden. It is as if a flower of golden light has opened
in you. And it is not just a symbol – it is a symbol but it is almost literally
true. It happens exactly like that. Right now you exist as darkness, as a dark night.
Then you exist as a sunrise. You cannot see the sun anywhere but the light is
there. There is no source to it. It is light without source. But once you have
known that golden light in you, you have become an immortal. Then there is no
death because the light never dies.
The whole of life, the whole
existence consists of nothing but light. All are forms of light. You can ask
modern physics too, and modern physics is in perfect agreement with Tao that
all is light; forms go on changing, but the light continues. Light is eternal.
The moment you attain to this eternal
light, your life has a single flavor. That flavor is contained by absolute
awareness. His unconscious has disappeared. There is no longer any dark part in
his being.
The work on the circulation of the
light depends entirely on the backward flowing movement, so that the thoughts
are gathered together. The heavenly heart lies between sun and moon.
Again remember, the sun represents
the male energy, the moon represents the feminine energy. And the heart lies
between the two. The heart is neither male nor female. And that is the beauty
of the heart. The heart is divine, neither male nor female. And it lies exactly
between the two.
THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER says
you have to be exactly in the middle, neither male nor female, no leaning to
any extreme. Then there is balance. Then one is active and yet remains inactive
deep inside. Then one is inactive and yet remains active on the outside. On the
outside be sun-oriented while on the inside be moon-oriented. Let sun and moon
meet in you, and you be just exactly in the middle. And in the middle is
transcendence.
Marriage and
Friendship
O
ne wonders why it
is so difficult for men and women to be Friends. It seems so ordinary, and
turns out to be ugly and almost impossible.
Either there is an ugly compromise like between husband and wife. Or
else Passion that eventually turns into Hate. Why always ugliness exists between
men and women?
It is very simple
to understand. Marriage is the ugliest institution invented by man. I call it
ugly institution where unlike other institutions no one is willing to learn
from the other or from circumstances and situations. And even if you learn from your mistakes the
other will not accept the change in you. The attitude of the other will remain
condemnatory towards you. I have seen many persons have changed but their
spouse never accepts them.
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