Summary: Discusses the process of evolution and how everything is part of it, from a stone to a human; through meditation one participates consciously. Emphasises the need of a strong foundation to face the inner turmoil that is raised in the process. Talks of the basic need of willingness to look at oneself and the sincerity and commitment to bring the needed change.

Meditation is the whole of your life, every moment of your life. But – how? When you are conscious. But then how to be conscious?

Of course you can say you are conscious now; but there is a different quality of being conscious when the force in you awakens. A whole lot of words we use – awakening, enlightenment… But then enlightenment is not a point in life, neither is it an end. It is a process, just as life has evolved through time and process to this position now wherein you are more aware of things, more conscious, more aware of your thoughts, more aware of your emotions and feelings – it is a continuum.

Look at this puppy. Surely there is a difference between his consciousness and ours: in refinement, in quality, in terms of how we feel our emotions; how we are aware of our thoughts and what kinds of thoughts and in terms of our consciousness being more open and evolved than his. That is why he is animal and hopefully we are human, if not divine; but that is potential in him also, just as it is in us.

So what has happened, what is the difference, why so? It is in the process of evolution which is what you do with your meditation, what you do with your sadhana – sadhana is a better word, – sadhana means the whole of your life taken up in the process of evolution through meditation. It is not that you are not conscious now, but it is in the quality of being conscious, the quality of being aware, in that is the difference. And that is a whole process, the process of enlightenment; for example the difference in the consciousness and being conscious of that puppy and us, and yet potentially that puppy has everything we have.

Look at the stone (picks up a stone) – the difference between our awareness and the awareness of the stone. One cannot say that this stone is self-aware; but surely if it is one Reality then within that one Reality this also is. If it is one Reality, then that one Reality is also the stone, and that one Reality is also us. Go back in time, before life emerged on the earth, there must have been only stones, and even before the stone – gas, liquid – elements. The stone is matter and it is energy. This is accepted, it has been proved. Now for you energy means movement. But even that which does not move is energy – there are atoms in movement in the stone (throws away the stone) – you just do not see it, you do not perceive it. And life evolved from all that. The stone cannot know itself, but you can, you as life evolved from there, meaning from that level of consciousness. You are more aware, you are more conscious than the stone, and the puppy is in between.

When you start to see things in this way then you start to feel oneness with everything. You see that it is only in terms of degrees of manifestation wherein lies the difference. That is why creation is always relative, in the world even truth is relative. Then you have the theory of relativity. You relate one thing with another, this is how you differentiate things. Even to decide if something is good or bad you relate it with something. And when you place a thing which you may consider good next to another, you might find that that one is even better than the one before and so on. It is all a matter of relationships.

Life is also relationships, this is the reality of life. Everything is relative, related to one thing or the other. We are related to this stone just as we are related to the puppy, in terms of the Reality. And yet there is a difference: difference in non-difference. There is one ground, and yet there is such a diversity and therefore the difference in terms of the manifestation. So you manifest more of the consciousness than the stone and the puppy.

And what you do with your sadhana is to become more and more conscious, more and more to evolve, to open up, to awaken. You see more each time. And it becomes radically more possible when the force awakens in you, what in the scriptures of Tantra and Yoga is called the Kundalini. It is an evolving force: what may take you thousands of years it can do in one lifetime!

So what we do with the breathing and why I keep insisting with the breathing, is to awaken this force. But I must say also that when it awakens it brings up tremendous energies and pressures in you: it will bring up a lot of emotions, a lot of upheavals; it will wake up a volcano in you. That is why I talk about courage; have you the courage to face that fire? It will bring tremendous transformation, and transformation means turmoil. How did creation happen, how did the earth become? There was great turmoil! Do you see the stars exploding? That is how the planets are formed – great turmoil! Through the chaos, the turmoil, the explosion, this whole movement of energy – birth, earth. When you sit with yourself and meditate you are creating a turmoil in yourself, you are activating forces in yourself, you are activating tremendous energies. For you are the power-house that contains within itself the whole of creation and the truth that is.

It is a big job, life itself! And yet there is nothing else because within it is everything. And to know this consciously, to be able to participate consciously rather than to go through it unconsciously, this is what makes the difference. So as you go through your movements, as you go through your life, as you explore, you reach within yourself, which means contemplation. Life is also contemplation. To contemplate on your actions, to contemplate on the reality of things, on the nature of things is all part of meditation, it is all part of growth – it is all part of evolution.

When you sit you are activating, you are initiating, you are bringing yourself to a self-awakening. Not only when you sit: you only sit so that you can gather your energies together and turn to this alone. Otherwise one should be capable of doing it while one is in movement, while one is walking about, while one is working, playing about, laughing – it will come as you advance.

Even the Buddha sat. Then it was easy for Him when he was walking about also… So spend time with yourself, even on your own, other than when you are here.

Go over things of the day that you have just passed. Try to see into the future – you will see. Nothing is hidden from you. You contain the whole Reality within yourself. Look into the past: you will know it – of course not like the past-life reading that happens these days, money-spinners where you will find a whole crowd without much past and without much future! I am talking about a genuine sense of commitment, a genuine sense of being a seeker, a sincerity, a sense of purpose, a sense of depth. There is no end to your depth and there is no end to your heights. But it must be sought.

When this force awakens in you it deals with every part of your being. And evolution means just that: it deals with the whole of your being – if you seek a complete evolution. Otherwise if you observe you can see that somebody may be evolved much in the head but not so much at the level of emotions, at the level of passions, at the level of the body. One may be highly intellectual but very weak in the body; one may be strong in the body but not so strong in the head; one may be highly intellectual but emotionally lacking. The agenda that we are talking about is to deal with the whole of ourselves – it is a big agenda! Therefore it requires a complete commitment; it requires a complete looking into yourself. Of course you have all of eternity to look into yourselves!

And so when the force awakens it creates such a turmoil in you, it brings up everything: things from the body level, things from your vitality, things of emotions, great ideas in your head; at the same time opening you out from within – a sense of freedom and vast open consciousness, – and the feeling of and a sense of identity with the Divine. But it is a process; it is an integration that happens. And yet you can take a part, a level of your being and realisation and make it the whole. It depends how much strength and patience you have to deal with the process – it requires a lot of strength, a lot of patience. That is why from the very beginning I give so much importance to the foundation. And so when we talk about meditation it means laying the foundation, it means working with yourself. And before working with yourself you must be committed to working with yourself. So it requires a will. Are you willing? If you are not, then there is no working with yourself – working comes after. First the willing. Is it an aye or is it a nay? Then again you may say yes from a certain part of your being. This moment you may say yes, next moment it may become a no because another part still requires to be dealt with. You will see in yourself, there is schizophrenia.

This is what is called looking into yourself to understand yourself, to understand your every part – how you think, how you feel, how you react. To look whether you want or you do not want. There are many different layers of watching. As your watching becomes more active you can start to see the motives, whether there is the want or not, whether one wants to see or not to see; whether one wants to do according to this or not. Otherwise we just live on the surface. Or we just put a front on the surface, but behind there are other motives. And to watch means to go beyond and through layers and layers of one’s being and consciousness. That is what is meant by sincerity. When you see, the very strength of seeing brings the power and the strength to go beyond also, because you are wanting to see – in that there is sincerity. This is why the repeated reminder to go deep so that we think about it again and again. That is the first stage.

Then comes the stage where we start to become a little more committed – more than just thinking, – really from the being itself: with our emotions, with our feelings, with our thoughts, everything – we want to look. This is why all this today’s business of watching, I do not give it much value – it has become a fashion also. ‘Watch, watch, watch!’ Watch what? You can watch eternally the same thing repeating itself without any result! Because those teachers who talk about watching, they are in a different space; they are in an awakened consciousness. For them watching is of a different quality – but looks like they cannot see this for they do not explain it. So I would say watchfulness, like Buddha says mindfulness, and by the mind he is not meaning just this thought-level mind; he is meaning your being. To be present with a sense of responsibility and sincerity, that is what Buddha means by mindfulness and that is what I mean by watchfulness. Whenever you do things you must be an integral being, the whole of you must be present. That is meditation; that is life. Of course, it is a process. So whatever we do let us do deeply.

And again, in today’s times they talk about no-mind – so you become mindless. It is just another fad without explaining the definition of what no-mind means. There is no such thing as no-mind! The mind is present, always. What they mean is no-thought, but they do think – who does not? Even the so-called enlightened people with these ideas of no-mind, they think! It is all right as poetry, and we too have poetry as part of meditation, we accept this part of life. But life is more than poetry, it is also prose which explains the poetry. You can see in the world – hard facts and reality – how many poets exist? Very few. There is more prose than poetry.

Yes, there are spaces which are thought-free, even thought-less spaces; spaces of being present totally and completely – the vastness of the consciousness, the silence, the tranquillity, the beatitude and therefore the ānanda, bliss. In that space you can think, at least I can! I can send my thoughts soaring into the firmament, into infinity.

So these expressions such as no-mind are fine to begin with but let us not be stuck to them. Let us understand their place so that in our seeking there is a maturity. I am talking about an integration of our consciousness and at the same time the awakening that brings about an increasing manifestation of the Reality, that which you are. And this is a process which is enlightenment – a process, I emphasise.

You are already in it without any choice. Not because you are here meditating – even that puppy is in it! He has no choice. (Laughing) At least you seem to be making choices… Even these trees, everything, the birds, are all part of this process of enlightenment. Because there is only One Reality; there is only the One which abides, and that One is working out its process which is itself – the process is also itself, you will find! A time comes when you see meditation, the meditator, and the object of meditation as one.

I want to initiate contemplation; I want to initiate a certain seriousness of purpose, to reach to our profundity. To be profound is to be deep. So that when we interact, when we relate, there is depth, there is a profundity even so in our abandonment, even so in our festivity and celebration. Because whenever you express, whatever you express has you in it – meaning your depth, your height.

Then again do not become so serious that you forget how to play! You see, this is the wonder of the Reality – there are contradictions and yet it is a harmony. Otherwise usually what happens is, ‘This fellow said be playful so we cannot be serious.’ ‘This fellow talked about seriousness, let us not be playful.’ It is either this or that. But the Reality is all! The complete rhythm of your being – a totality.

And what is life? Life is that which brings about this development in you: the appreciation of being playful, and also the appreciation of purpose, of sincerity. All the interactions in life, inter-relating in life, they are opportunities for you to grow in one thing or the other. Then you are always moving, always growing; there is never a moment you are not growing. It is better to be active than inactive. It is better to respond than not to – even if you were to respond in silence. What I mean by this is to be active in your energies. It is better to respond and learn from it – for then you know – than not to respond and not know. Of course, some know beforehand – this too you will find in yourself. And to know beforehand comes from being watchful. You are awake then, this is called awakening. You become aware of things before they happen, before they can happen. You know the future. It is miraculous! Of course usually what people would like to know is whether one was Leonardo da Vinci or Mona Lisa in the past or whether one will (laughing) have many disciples in the future! Really every moment you are seeing into the future. Of course it is all right to run your imagination wild; it is all right, you have the freedom, go wild with it if that makes you happy!

So know the whole of yourself. Know your strengths, know your weaknesses and then see what you can do about them. Of course this is to come back to the point – do you want to do something about them? If you want to, then it is done; if you do not want to, then it is not done – simple. Do you want to stop drinking coca cola? It is done. The bottle drops from your hand. All this watching business, this whole fashion – I have known people who have been smoking away and watching for years. They even have an arrangement in the ashram in a corner and there they smoke away, puff away and send smoke signals up and choke God up there in the heavens, He is smoked out and blue in the face; therefore the sky is blue for the sky is His face and His face has gone blue because of the smoke – and they continue to watch! You can collect a massive crowd with all these gimmicks! Do you want to? It drops. Do you not want to? Keep on. Only two options, only two choices – simple. Otherwise we just befool ourselves with all kinds of techniques. You can amass a big crowd but nothing is done. Yes, you keep the cigarette companies in business. Yes, it is like the cigarette companies, who write on the packets, “It is injurious to your health” and yet they continue to produce them. Of course it is for those who would like to continue with it and watch! You may say it is a process, ‘I am in the process’ but the process will not work if there is no will and sincerity of purpose.

Again coming back to the point. Let us not kid ourselves, fool ourselves. Yes, you do not want to, you would like to carry on for a while – that is fine. Your decision, you are responsible. The outcome is that you keep a lot of people in business – doctors, cigarette companies, (laughing) coca cola company. Many people are employed there, much employment, economy growing. Countries’ economies are based on that. But I am sure that we could have economies still doing well dealing with better things and surely in better ways. Maybe life has to go through all this before it can be wiser – maybe! But what should a seeker be? Let us be honest with ourselves, are we being honest? That is why it is called strength, inner strength. How sharp is your commitment, how strong? Are you committed? That is why it is called sadhana – committed life. You know, life is full of clubs: you have the coca cola club, you have the cigarette club, you have the beer club, you have the gossip club. There is always a club, you are part of the club if you are participating in whatever they do. You will be part of the coca cola club if you are also drinking coca cola. Otherwise if you are not, you cannot be part of that club. In that way you can exclude yourself, but then you feel all alone, left out – but it is great for meditation!

Pb.: You can always join a meditation club then!

Well, I wonder what that club is – I have not seen one yet.

Pb.: In Pune they’ve got a meditation club…

Yes, for sure – I know. Pune is known for many things… Take away all of those things, I wonder how much meditation will be left! Of course you give people some toys to play with and then hopefully they will sit with themselves. So sometimes you have to play tricks and gimmicks like that. But let us be honest, why should we require toys? Why should we require gimmicks – why? I am only raising the question. You look into yourself. Then again, meditation does not mean you do not interact. But surely interaction is more than coca cola and cigarettes and gossip and things like that. And as your consciousness is raised, deepens, so also will your interaction.

So I would say, do that which keeps your body, mind and your being healthy. Because the awakening of the force will create great turmoil in you and you will need a strong body, a healthy mind and heart. And whenever you need to replenish and rejuvenate yourself and as a help for your meditation, use this breathing kriyā, exercise, technique. It is highly rejuvenating; it will replenish your energies, at the same time relax and harmonise you. And spend some time just quietly by yourself, not doing anything but just being with yourself, quietly, silently, in contemplation and meditation – half an hour at least. You can take a little walk by yourself after the sitting, so that you know your meditation is not over when you get up from here, but it continues and carries on and becomes the whole of your life. Then you will become more conscious, more aware of what you say, what you do, how you act, how you respond. And to be conscious is to be responsible.

Be happy about it (laughing) – do not look so unhappy!

Panchmadhi

22 Jan 2000