Prabhaker

U. G. Krishnamurti said he went to see Ramana Maharshi. He was not attracted - because he was chopping vegetables. Yes, Ramana Maharshi was that kind of man, very ordinary. Chopping vegetables! U. G. Krishnamurti must have gone to see somebody extraordinary sitting on a golden throne or something. Ramana Maharshi just sitting on the floor and chopping vegetables? preparing vegetables for the kitchen! He was very much frustrated. Then another day he went and saw him reading jokes. Finished for ever! This man knows nothing. This man is very ordinary. He left the ashram; it was not worth it. Ramana Maharshi, is one of the greatest Buddhas ever born to the world. That was his Buddhahood in action! U. G. Krishnamurti must have been in search of a pretender. U. G. Krishnamurti, lived with Swami Sivanand of Rishikesh for seven years - and that chap was just stupid - and practised yoga with him. And after seven years he recognized that he has nothing; but after seven years, he took seven years. That simply shows that he also has a mighty dull mind. Seven years to see that Sivanand has nothing. U.G. Krishnamurti lived with J. Krishnamurti for twelve years, and he never mentioned his name. If somebody brought up J. Krishnamurti's name, he immediately condemned J. Krishnamurti -- and whatever he was saying is just an imitation of J. Krishnamurti, paraphrasing. These people like U.G. Krishnamurti were telling people to drop anger, to drop greed, to drop the ego. But if you provoke them... Their whole religion is just skindeep. Inside is hiding a very pious ego. U.G. Krishnamurti was not an authentic or sincere man -- but you can fall into the trap because he was repeating beautiful phrases. His memory was good, and his intellect was good, but this was the shadow.

@Seyed Only people who know how to be without the mind, are capable of using the mind, otherwise the mind uses them. You are being used; the mind has become the master of you, you are a slave, but the mind is very clever, it goes on buttressing you. It says, “I am just an instrument, you are the master.” But watch, look into the mechanism of the mind, how it goes on using you. You think you are using it. You can use it only when you know that you are separate from it; otherwise how will you use it? You are identified with it.

First give the emotions a chance to come totally up into the conscious. Right now you are repressing them in the unconscious. Then you get involved in your day-to-day work and you force them back again. That is not the way to get rid of them. Let them come out; live them, suffer them. It will be difficult and tedious but immensely rewarding. Once you have lived them, suffered them and accepted them – that this is you, that you have not made yourself in this way so you need not condemn yourself, that this is the way you have found yourself…. Once they are lived consciously, without any repression, you will be surprised that they are disappearing on their own. Their force on you is becoming less; their grip on your neck is no longer that tight. And when they are going away there may be a time when you can start watching. Once everything comes into the conscious mind it disperses, and when only the shadow is there, that is the time to become aware. Right now it will create insanity ; then it will create enlightenment.

Psychology cannot transform you. It can certainly give you a few insights into the mind, but those insights are not going to be transforming, because transformation always happens from a higher plane. Transformation never means solving problems — remaining on the same plane — that means adjustment. Psychology is still trying to help you adjust — to adjust to the society which is itself insane, to adjust to the family, to adjust to the ideas that are dominant around you. But all those ideas — your family, your society — they themselves are ill, sick, and to adjust to them will give you a certain normality, at least a superficial appearance of health, but it is not going to transform you. Psychology can give you a few insights into the mind, but because it cannot take you beyond the mind it can’t be of any help. Be a light unto yourself. Do not follow others, do not imitate, because imitation, following, creates stupidity. You are born with a tremendous possibility of intelligence. You are born with a light within you. Listen to the still, small voice within, and that will guide you. Nobody else can guide you, nobody else can become a model for your life, because you are unique. Nobody has there been ever who was exactly like you, and nobody is ever going to be there again who will be exactly like you.

See what man has done to man himself. In three thousand years man has fought five thousand wars. All the countries are preparing for war. And the Third World War will be a total war. Nobody is going to be a winner, because nobody is going to survive it. Not only is man going to be destroyed but all life on earth. You cannot call this humanity healthy. And only once in a while has a Buddha bloomed. Something very basic has gone wrong. Each person is born to be a Buddha: less than that is not going to fulfill you. Beware of the old conditioning which divides you as Indians, as Germans, as Japanese, as Americans. The enlightened man has to be universal. He will transcend all barriers of race, religion, sex, colour. The enlightened man will not be of the East or of the West; the new man will claim the whole earth as his home. For thousands of years we have lived with an either/or concept of man as a kind of battleground between the lower and the higher, the material and the spiritual, the worldly and the other–worldly, between good and evil, between God and the Devil. The consequences of such have severely limited human potential. The old man was repressive, aggressive. The old man was bound to be aggressive because repression always brings aggression. The enlightened man will be spontaneous, creative. The enlightened man is open and honest. He is transparently real, authentic and self-disclosing. He will not be a hypocrite. Right now the enlightened man is bound to be a mutant minority – but he is the carrier of a new culture.

We can't generalize everything, outcome of course depends on many things. It is influenced by your present mental and physical condition. Whether your instructor is a master or technician. There are technicians selling the technique of Vipassana. And people are gullible. When they see that so many people are going, they start thinking perhaps they should also go. Still I will advise you to join the course. If it helps, that will be great. If it doesn't work, it will give you experience and maturity.

Vipassana meditation for 1-2 hours a day in the morning is perfectly fine. If it gives you a certain feeling of affinity, if it gives you a certain feeling of well-being, if it gives you a certain feeling that this is for you, then be serious about it. Then forget the others techniques, do not play with other methods. Stick to it - at least three months. I don't agree with '10 days of intense meditation', it not good for beginners. Whenever someone begins meditation, he will become aware of many things of which he was not previously aware, and because of that awareness he will suffer. This is how things are, and one has to pass through them. You are becoming more unconscious. With a real, authentic meditation you will suffer more, because you will become more aware. So when you allow it to happen, you don´t escape, you don´t run, you are not in a panic, suddenly you become aware that suffering is there on the periphery as if happening to someone else, not to you, and you are looking at it. A subtle joy spreads all over your being because you have realized one of the basic truths of life, that you are bliss and not suffering. Suffering should not be end result.

Vipassana meditation - should not be done more than two hours. And those two hours have to be early in the morning; the best time is before sunrise. If somebody goes on meditating for ten hours, the ultimate consequence is going to be insanity. And there will be by-products also; for example, a man meditating for ten hours will lose his sleep completely. Vipassana done after sunset is very dangerous. If you do Vipassana for just two hours in the night, then you cannot sleep. It creates such awareness in you that that awareness continues the whole night. Unless a meditation brings you more laughter, more joy, more playfulness, avoid it. It is not for you.

The Jesus is not like Buddha or Lao Tzu. You cannot conceive of Buddha's going into a temple and beating moneylenders. But Jesus did it. The temple was becoming richer and richer: it was religious imperialism. The whole country was poor and suffering, but so much money would be automatically coming into the temple. Then Jesus entered one day with a whip in his hand. He overturned the moneylenders' boards and began to beat the moneylenders. He created chaos in the temple. You cannot conceive of Buddha doing this. Impossible! He got so angry at some things that we cannot even believe it. He cursed a fig tree which was not yielding any fruit because he and his disciples were hungry. He destroyed it! He threatened in a type of language that Buddha could not even utter. For example, he said that those who would not believe in him and the kingdom of God would be thrown into the fires of hell, the eternal fires of hell, and they would not be able to come back. Only the Christian hell is eternal. He was fully enlightened. But because he lived amidst a people who were absolutely ignorant about enlightenment, he had to speak in a language which may indicate he was not. He had to use such language because, at that particular time and place, there was no other possibility - only this could be understood.

Your thoughts have to understand one thing: that you are not interested in them. The moment you have made this point you have attained a tremendous victory. Just watch. Don't say anything to the thoughts. Don't judge. Don't condemn. Don't tell them to move. Let them do whatsoever they are doing, any gymnastics let them do; you simply watch, enjoy. It is just a beautiful film. And you will be surprised: just watching, a moment comes when thoughts are not there, there is nothing to watch. Meditation is not thinking at all; it is witnessing. It is just sitting silently deep within yourself, looking at whatsoever is happening inside and outside both. Outside there is traffic noise, inside there is also traffic noise -- the traffic in the head. So many thoughts rushing in every direction. But you are simply sitting aloof, unconcerned, watching everything with no evaluation.

When al-Hillaj Mansoor, who was killed finally by the Mohammedans… just like Jesus, but in a far worse way. They cut him piece by piece. But this happened later on, when he became enlightened and declared: “Ana’l haq — I am the truth.” And Mohammedans cannot forgive anybody saying this. Only god is truth. Calling yourself truth, you are indirectly calling yourself God. But he was not calling himself God. He was simply saying, “I am the truth.” And he was not claiming any monopoly on it. His Master, al-Junaid, tried to persuade him in many ways -- 'Don't say these things! Keep them inside you, because the people won't understand it and you will be getting into trouble unnecessarily!' Religions can't tolerate a person who is enlightened.

True religion is existential. It has always happened to only a few people and then it disappears from the earth because the intellectuals immediately grab it and they start making beautiful ideologies out of it -- neat and clean, logical. In that very effort they destroy its beauty. They create philosophies, and religion disappears. The Mullah, pundit, the scholar, the theologian, is the enemy of religion. They turn religion into political organisation. It is big business. And these people are not going to easily allow the true religion to be born. Man is only formally paying respect to Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, but basically anybody who has any intelligence is no longer interested in all that rubbish. He may go to the synagogue and to the church and to the mosque for other reasons, but those reasons are not religious; those reasons are social. It pays to be seen in the synagogue; it is respectable, and there is no harm. It is just like joining the rotary club or the lions club. These religions are old clubs which have a religious jargon around them, but look a little deeper and you will find they are all hocus-pocus with no substance inside.

Your own will is so divided into itself. You don't have one will; you have many wills in you. You are a crowd! Gurdjieff used to say you don't have one 'I', you have many small 'I's'. And those 'I's' go on changing. For a few minutes one I becomes the sovereign, and then it is thrown out of power; another I becomes the sovereign. And you can watch it! It is a simple fact. It has nothing to do with any theory. You love a person, and you are so loving. One I dominates: the I that loves. Then something goes wrong and you hate the person - in a single moment love has turned into hatred. Now you want to destroy the person - at least, you start thinking how to destroy the person. Now the hatred has come in: another I which is totally different is on the throne. That's why it happens that you can decide tonight: "Tomorrow morning I will get up at three o'clock; whatsoever happens I am going to get up." You fix the alarm and at three o'clock you stop the alarm and you are annoyed by the alarm. And you think, "One day - what does it matter? Tomorrow...." and you go to sleep. And again when you get up at eight o'clock in the morning you are angry at yourself. You say, "How could it happen? I had DECIDED to get up. How did I continue to sleep?" Gurdjieff used to say that unless you have a permanent crystallized I you should not trust yourself. You are not one, you are a crowd: you are polypsychic.

The goal is one, but the paths are many. And each master has to defend his path, which is his experience, knowing perfectly well that other paths are as valid as his. But if he starts saying that all the paths are valid, he will not have the impact, the influence on his people. The journey is long and he needs absolute trust. He is not a philosopher propounding a system of philosophy. His basic concern is that your commitment to the path should be total. If you travel some time on one path and then you change the path, you will have to start again from ABC. Whatever you have learned on one path is invalid on another path, and if you go on keeping it within you it is going to create tremendous confusion.The journey is long, the night is long, and if you go astray you can go on round and round for eternity without finding anything. Path of meditation is not the only path and many great religions ( not talking about fake cults), which are not relevant for modern man, guided hundreds of seekers, when they were alive and not distorted.

Spirituality is a subjective experience, just like love. What is the criterion of love? Can you prove when you fall in love? Can you prove that really you have fallen in love? Is there a way to prove it? Is there any argument, any logic that will support you — any eyewitnesses? All that you can say is, “I know for certain that my heart is beating differently” — but that is something inner to you. You can say, “I am feeling so blissful,” but that is something subjective. You cannot bring some part of your blissfulness and show it to people as a criterion. Love, or truth, or bliss — they don’t have any criterion; they are experiences of the inner. Criteria are always of the outer. Don’t impose outer criteria for the inner — that is the fallacy of the video.

If you attempt to break anybody's sleep, she will take revenge on you, she will be at your throat. The family gives you conflict, ambition, and ambition is one of the hindrances for meditation. It gives you desires, it gives you a longing to be successful, and all these things create your tensions, your anxieties. Don't create unnecessary trouble by focusing too much on family members.

A man asked a Zen master: ‘Since you have become enlightened what changes happen in your life?’ The master said: ‘Before I became enlightened I used to chop wood and carry water from the well.’ And the man asked: ‘Now that you have become enlightened what do you do? What changes have happened?’ He said: ‘I chop wood and I carry water from the well.’ But the man was puzzled. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘what is the difference? It is the same thing.’ And the master laughed. He said, ‘It is not the same thing. Before, I used to chop wood and think a thousand and one thoughts. Now I simply chop wood. It is so beautiful just to chop wood and do nothing. Before, I used to have a thousand and one desires while drawing water from the well. Now I simply draw water. And to tell you the truth, there is no one inside me who is drawing the water. And when I am chopping the wood it is wonderful, because there is nobody in me chopping the wood. I have disappeared! The wood is being chopped and the water is being carried, and it is tremendously beautiful.’ The ordinary life becomes extraordinary if you live it totally, fully.

Youth is the best time for inner transformation because youth is the most flexible time. Children are more flexible than young people, but they are not so understanding. They need a little experience. Youth is exactly the middle; you are no longer a child, no longer ignorant of life and its ways and not yet settled as an old man. Youth is the most significant time to take any jump, because the jump needs courage, it needs energy, it needs risk, it needs daring. You will not be able to make a successful career in politics. A politician cannot have any spiritual experience. You will loose desire to dominate others.

The Law of Attraction feeds on people’s greed, it said that you can attract whatever you want in your life – money, success, the perfect relationship, great house, car etc – simply by focusing on it with the positive intent to have it. In other words, by using positive intention, or positive thinking, you can manifest whatever you want for your life. It appeals perfectly to the greedy, lazy age we live in. We may consciously think we want more money, and focus on the visualization of a nice fat bank account of a few million, but if there is a belief in our unconscious mind that we don’t deserve to be rich, that we will never win the lottery, that it is something for other people not me, then guess what – no matter how much and for how long you visualize those millions, you will never get them! You cannot change reality. The night will still be there; you can think that it is daytime for twenty-four hours, but by your thinking it, it is not going to be light twenty-four hours a day.

When one becomes so ecstatic in himself then even compassion seems to be preventing his own joy . That’s why there have been hundreds of enlightened people, but very few masters. To be enlightened does not mean necessarily that you will become a master. Becoming a master means you have tremendous compassion. You want to help the people who are blind, in darkness, groping their way. There are two types of self-realized persons. One attains self-realization and becomes one with the void; the other type attains self-realization but still remains in existence to help others.

If you think that life can be improved by material progress never start a journey towards enlightenment, it is most likely that you will fail miserably.

It is freedom of man to become in-tune with existence or not. He can become a Hitler, he can become a Buddha.

Only barbarians can do things that we have been doing for thousands of years, we are still not completely civilized. More conscious man will be far more civilized.

When ambition enters, creativity disappears -- because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, 'When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?' When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is always in the future -- and a creative person is always in the present. Ego is the enemy of creativity.If your act is your love affair then it becomes creative. Creativity is the quality you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things. Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, then it is creative.

Man has different plane of consciousness. Animals have consciousness but they do not have awareness of their consciousness. Man knows that he has consciousness.