The Perfect Master, Vol 1 Talks on Sufi Stories

The only thing that matters is: I am here and you are here, but the meeting is not happening. If the meeting happens, you will become enlightened. And let only that be decisive. The day you become enlightened, the meeting has happened. Otherwise, what is the point?

And I know that you know it, because you have also asked another question which will make it clear. Chidvilas asks:

And your mind is full of knowledge. So you can always find excuses, explanations, rationalizations. That's why the meeting is not happening. Now this is another effort out of your knowledge: you want to know whether we have met in some past life.

If I say yes, your ego will be strengthened. You will start thinking yourself very special. That is the desire in it. So even if we have met, I am not going to say it. All I am going to say is: Meet me now! because there may be no other life for me again. You may not meet me again. No possibility. Don't miss THIS opportunity.

And remember: the initiation ceremony is not going to help. It has not to be just a ceremony -- it has to be existential. You are initiated as a sannyasin, but that has not helped either. Just by becoming a sannyasin you don't become one. It is just a preliminary. It helps. It brings you a little closer. It makes you a little more open, a little more trusting. But it is not the end!

The real initiation is going to happen some day when you drop all your mind and you just look into me with no idea, with no knowledge, with innocence.

Remember Zusya and those children who looked into his eyes. The day you look into my eyes as if you are a child, innocent, with no past, with no future, then the meeting will happen.

Stop escaping.

WHY ARE THE PSYCHOTHERAPISTS CALLED SHRINKS?

When you go to a psychotherapist, you go as a person, with dignity. They reduce you immediately to labels: you are a schizophrenic, paranoid, neurotic. Immediately you are reduced! You are no more the same person with the dignity. A label has been put on you. You are a disease! You have to be treated.

By reducing you to a patient, the psychotherapist has become much bigger. The more he reduces you to smallness, the bigger he feels.

This is an old trip, only the names have changed. In the past it was the priest, now it is the psychotherapist. In the past, the priest was shrinking you -- trying to create the guilt feeling, trying to create the feeling that you are wrong somehow, that you need to be changed, that you are not acceptable as you are, that you are getting ready for hell.

The whole effort of the priest was to reduce you to criminals, sinners. The priest was creating a kind of guilt feeling in you. Now the work has been taken up by the psychotherapist. The psychotherapist is the priest of the new age. He reduces you, he does not enhance you. He does not give you splendor, respect for your being. On the contrary, he makes you feel worthless.

And that's why we are trying to create a new kind of therapy here -- in which you are not reduced to diseases, but enhanced, expanded. The psychotherapist is not there to label you as ill, but is there only to help you to know that you are not ill, that who says that you are ill? that you are carrying wrong notions about yourself. Who has told you that you are worthless? You are immensely valuable.

That is my whole effort here: to help you expand.

The psychotherapist and the priest and the so-called gurus, they have ALL been doing the same thing to people: they have been shrinking them. They have reduced humanity to worms, crawling on the earth, ugly, afraid of seeing their own faces in the mirror. Afraid to look into their own beings, because there is nothing but all that is wrong. Wounds and pus.

Here the effort is to create a totally different kind of therapy, true to the very meaning of the word. The meaning of the word 'therapy' is that which heals. And what heals? Love heals. Love is therapy. Nothing else is therapy. Not psychoanalysis, not analytical psychology. Only love heals. Healing is a function of love. But love expands your consciousness. It allows you to go higher and higher and touch the stars. It makes you feel respected. It makes you feel that you are needed in existence, that without you there will be something missing in existence, there will be a hole without you, unfulfillable. You are a must. This existence cannot be the same without you. You are not just an accident. You are essentially needed.

Let me remind you of Zusya again: Zusya is one of the most beautiful Masters -- you can call him the Perfect Master. One day he was caught praying in the synagogue. Why caught? because the people felt very offended. He was saying to God, "Listen, I need you so you need me. Without you I will be nothing. And I say to you: without me yowl will be nothing. I am me because of you; you are you because of me."

The people were offended. They said, "What are you saying Zusya? Have you gone mad?"

He had not gone mad. This is the way one should have a dia-logue with God. This is not ego! not at all. This is a simple fact. Even a small leaf of grass is AS valuable as any star. There is no hierarchy in existence, nobody is lower and nobody is higher. We are ALL joined into one organic unity.

This is real therapy. Therapy when it is real will be nothing but love. Therapy when real will help you to regain your con-fidence, will help you to bloom.

The word 'Buddha' comes from a root 'bodha'. In the ancient days, the word 'bodha' was used for the opening up of a bud. It comes from the world of flowers; then it was taken over. 'Bodha' means originally opening up of a bud and becoming a flower. Then it was taken in a metaphoric sense: when a man opens up, blooms, releases fragrance and color and dances in the sky, he becomes a Buddha -- he has opened up.

REAL therapy does not shrink you: it opens you up. It makes all that is yours available to you. It gives you your lost treasure. But as far as the modern psychotherapy is concerned, people are right in calling psychotherapists shrinks -- they are.

And a strange thing is this: that they are AS ill as the people they are treating. Sometimes even more so. I have never come across a psychotherapist who is not mentally in some disturbance. Maybe just to avoid his own mental disturbance he has become interested in other people's mental disturbances, and he is playing superior. And he is getting more and more ill every day.

I have heard:
A motion picture actor told his psychiatrist, "I'm attracted to men instead of women."

The shrink replied, "You've come to the right place, handsome!"

People get in trouble -- not that people are wrong but because people are brought up in wrong situations. Everybody is born perfectly healthy and normal, but is born in a neurotic society, where parents are neurotic, teachers are neurotic, priests are neurotic, politicians are neurotic. And they ALL jump upon the small child, and they start manipulating him. They drive him crazy.

We have not yet been able to develop a right kind of upbringing. The science remains very rudimentary, primitive. We have come from bullock-carts to jets, but as far as the rearing of a child is concerned, we are as primitive as ever. We have not evolved in that. Parents go on pouring their diseases into the children. And children are helpless victims. And in their own turn they will have nothing to give to their children -- they will have to give their illnesses. That's all they have.

People are not neurotic: it is a neurotic atmosphere.

And, just by analyzing people's neuroses you are not going to transform them either. Just by analyzing, at the most you can help them to become a little more adjusted. You can make them feel that that's how life is. Freud says: There is no possibility of enjoyment in life -- one can only endure it.

If you go through psychoanalysis, sooner or later you will see this is what life is: all this nonsense, all this rubbish, all these neurotic desires -- this is what life is! One starts settling with it. One loses hope, becomes settled. What is the point of raging against it? It is to no purpose. There is no enjoyment possible.

Psychoanalysis is very pessimistic. It is very strange! People say Buddha is pessimistic, even Freud and people like that say Buddha is pessimistic. This is really strange. Buddha is not pessimistic, neither is Shankara, nor is Rumi. These people are NOT pessimistic, although they say that life is full of misery. But they say it only to make you aware that it should not be so, that it need not be so.

Life is misery, they say again and again, because life can be bliss. They simply provoke you to take your life in your own hands. It can be transformed into bliss. But they are not pessimists.

Freud is a pessimist. Psychotherapists ARE pessimists. They have accepted this is all that life is supposed to be; one has to live with it, one has to endure it somehow. They make people capable of COPING with it, but this is not much. Just to cope with it -- and then comes death...?

No, life can be a dance. Life can be a song. A real therapy will not only help you to cope with hue: it will help you to become more alive. It will help you to gain life abundant. It will help you to move towards SATCHITANANDA -- it will help you to attain to eternal bliss. Only then is it therapy. But then it is no more a kind of shrinking -- then it is expansion.

In fact, the original Hebrew word for heaven means expansion. When Jesus says: the kingdom of heaven is within you, he is saying metaphorically that if you expand, if you expand to the very ultimate limits of existence, this is what the kingdom of heaven is.

Real therapy will be of a totally different color, shape, flavor. This is why I am so much interested in therapy. You will not find anybody else in the whole of India so much interested in therapy. To have therapies in an ashram is unheard of, but my interest is deep in it, because I know therapy is doing much wrong to people. It has moved in a very very pessimistic dimension.

And therapy is the religion of the modern man. Just to go on talking about the Bible and the Koran and the Vedas is almost out of date, it is meaningless. It has no relevance. One has to talk relevant to the situation and to the real problems people are facing in their lives.

Therapy is one of the things that has to be changed, transformed, so that it can become a healing force, so that it can bring you towards more wholeness and holiness.

DO REAL PROBLEMS EXIST? ARE ALL PROBLEMS JUST MIND GAMES? DOES AWARENESS MAKE PROBLEMS DISAPPEAR? OR IS THERE A POSSIBILITY THAT AWARENESS BRINGS REPRESSION? IF I'D THAT WHENEVER I FEEL A LITTLE MORE CENTERED AND AWARE THAN USUAL I DON'T FEEL ANY PROBLEMS, BUT WHEN I AM NO MORE CENTERED ALL THE OLD PROBLEMS ARE BACK AND THEY LOOK EVEN BIGGER. IS THIS REPRESSION?

It is as if you are hiding rubbish in your house: you will be afraid to bring light in, because then you will have to see all that you have been hiding there. You cannot bring light in.

I said, "That's perfectly okay, but never come in the day."

He said, "Why?"

I said, "Just don't come."

Naturally, he rushed, in the morning he went back. And he came from there saying, "Such a dirty place!"

But it was looking so beautiful.

Awareness will release all that is repressed. Awareness NEVER represses -- on the contrary, it releases repressions.

But Ratna's experience is true. If you become aware, problems disappear. Naturally, the question arises: Is not awareness repressing those problems? -- because how can they suddenly disappear? And when awareness is lost, centering is gone, and you are no more so conscious, again the problems pop up -- and they are bigger than ever! So the natural conclusion is: awareness repressed them. It is not so.

When you are unconscious, you create problems. Unconsciousness has its own language -- that is the language of problems. It is like when you are groping in darkness. One thing falls, you stumble upon another thing. These are problems because of the darkness. If light comes, you will not stumble upon the table, and nothing will fall. You can move easily now. You will be able to see. But when it is dark, try to move in your own house and many accidents will happen. You may not be able to find the door in the night. You may not be able to find where things are.

In darkness, the way you live creates problems. Darkness or unconsciousness only understands the language of problems; it has no solutions. Even if a solution is given to you, In your unconsciousness you will make a problem out of it. That's what goes on happening: if I say something to you, you understand something totally different. You understand from your standpoint.
A spinster schoolteacher on her summer vacation was visiting the reservation at Yosemite. She spotted a big brave standing against a tree and became very curious about his sex life.

"How does a great big man like you get satisfaction up here where there are no young squaws?" she asked.

The Indian stared at her unbelievingly and then said, "You see cow?"

"Yes, I see cow... you don't mean?"

"Yes," said the brave, "me make love to cow. Also, you see horse?"

"Yes," said the spinster, horrified. "I see horse."

"Me make love to horse."

"Oh, dear!" cried the distraught old maid.

"No," grunted the Indian sadly. "No make love to deer. Run too fast."
Unconsciousness understands in its own way. That's why Buddhas are always misunderstood. That's a natural fate. It can't be avoided. It is very difficult to understand a Buddha. It is very easy and natural to misunderstand him. To understand him will require great awareness on your part -- because he lives in the world where there are no problems! where there are all solutions and solutions and no problems, all answers and no questions. And you live in a world where there are only questions and questions and no answers. You live so far away... as if you are living on different planets.

He goes on shouting from there, but whatsoever reaches to you is totally different. And you can always find rationalizations for whatsoever you understand. You can become very argumentative, defensive too.

"Does the defendant really expect this court of law to accept his story that the completely assembled still on his property was not being used for the purpose of producing illicit whiskey?"

"That's right, Your Honour!" said Gilliam. "I bought that as a novelty, a conversation piece. I do not now, nor have I ever, operated it as a still to produce whiskey."

"Hogwash!" howled the magistrate. "As far as this court is concerned, possession of the equipment is proof enough of your guilt!"

"Then, Your Honour, I guess you'd also better charge me with raping your daughter!"

"What!" screamed the judge. "Did you rape my daughter too?"

"No, sir," said Gilliam. "But she was at my place last night -- and I sure got the equipment for it!"
Mind is very cunning and clever. It can argue in clever ways. It can even find rationalizations and proofs; it can give you the feeling that you have understood rightly.

But Ratna's question is of immense importance. It is of importance for everybody who is here. Because this is a place where you have to become more and more aware. Awareness has to become the climate.

So your consciousness has not to be out of will-power. It has to be out of understanding. It has to be relaxed. It has to be a kind of let-go. Not enforced. That is one of the most essential things to understand. If you try to become aware, you will repress.

For example, anger has arisen, and you try to become aware of the anger -- stubbornly, forcibly, violently, aggressively. activity, with will. With that effort, anger will recede. It will fall into the reservoir of your unconscious. It will move into the basement of your being, and will wait there. When your effort is gone... and effort cannot be continuous, because effort tires. You can make effort, will for a moment, for a few moments, for a few hours, or for a few days, but sooner or later you will need a holiday. You will be tired of the whole effort. And the MOMENT you are on a holiday, the anger will come back, and with greater force -- because while it was repressed it became pressurized. And whenever any energy is pressurized, it gains energy, it becomes more condensed. So whenever the lid is off your effort and will and the weight is removed, it will explode into violent rage.

That's what happens to people who cultivate things. They can repress their anger but they will be creating only rage. Anger is momentary. Rage is chronic. Anger is nothing to be worried about -- it comes and goes. It is just a breeze. But rage is dangerous. It becomes part of you. It becomes your foundation. It is always, there. Don't you know people who are always angry? And they may not show their anger at all, and they are always angry. Whatsoever they do, they do in anger. The anger is constantly flowing underneath them like an undercurrent. It has become underground. But it affects their love, it affects their friendship, it affects their very vise. They become repulsive, they become ugly. And they may not be angry at all, not showing anger.

Ordinarily what happens is that people who become angry for small reasons are good people, they are never in rage. You can trust them: they cannot murder or commit suicide. They will never gather that much poison. Small poison is created, thrown away. They are always fresh, healthy. Situations create anger, but they don't collect it, they don't accumulate it -- they are not hoarders.

The so-called good people, respectable people, saints, etcetera, they are the really dangerous people -- they go on accumulating. One day it is going to explode. And if-it is not going to explode, it has to become their very life-style. Chronic it will be.

Never bring awareness through willpower. Anything brought by will-power is going to be wrong -- let that be the criterion. Then how to bring awareness? Understand. When anger comes, try to understand why it has come; try to understand without any condemnation, without any justification either, without any evaluation. Just watch it. Neutral you should be.

Just as you watch a cloud moving in the sky: in the inner sky an anger cloud moves -- watch it. See what it is. Look deep into it. Try to understand it. And you will find there is a chain: the anger cloud disappears, but because you looked deeply into it, something else has been found -- maybe ego was hurt, that's why you become angry. Now watch this ego cloud, which is more subtle. Go on watching it. Get deep into it.

Nobody has ever been able to find anything in the ego. So if you go deep into it, you will not find it; and when you have not found it, it is no more. Then suddenly there is a great light -- out of understanding, out of penetration, out of witnessing, with no effort, with no will, with no conclusion that it should be like this or should be like that. A neutral witnessing. And awareness arises. And this awareness has beauty and benediction. This awareness will heal you

And if this awareness comes, you will never be tired of it, because it has not been forced in the first place. So there is no need for any holiday!

Just think: the Christian, the Jewish God, after six days was tired and had to rest on the seventh day. In the East we don't have any conception for God's rest. Why? It looks a little hard on him. The Eastern God goes on working, goes on working -- no holiday. Why is there no holiday in the East for God? In fact, the holiday that happens here in the East, in the offices, in the schools and colleges, has been brought from the West. Otherwise, there was no question of holiday at all, because life was seen from a totally different vision. It is play, not work.

The Jewish God MUST have got tired. Six days work, such a long work, and such a failure! Must have got tired. And finally, in the end, he created man, and since then he has not created anything. It indicates what has happened to him: he became so fed up with his own creation that after man he stopped it. He said, "Enough is enough!"