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Vigyan
Bhairav Tantra - Meditation Technique 66
BE THE UNSAME SAME TO FRIEND AS TO STRANGER, IN HONOR AND DISHONOR
Osho - "BE THE UNSAME SAME" -- this is the base. What is
happening in you? Two things are happening. Something in you remains
continuously the same, it never changes. You may not have observed it,
you may not have encountered it yet, but if you observe you will come to
know that something in you remains constantly the same. Because of that
sameness, you can have an identity. Because of that sameness, you feel
yourself centered; otherwise you will be a chaos. You say, "My
childhood." Now what has remained of it? WHO says, "My childhood"? Who
is this "my, me, I"?
Nothing has remained of your childhood. If your pictures of your
childhood are shown to you for the first time, you will not be able to
recognize them. Everything has changed. Your body is no more the same;
not a single cell has remained the same. Physiologists says that the
body is a flux, it is river-like. Every moment many cells are dying and
many new ones are born. Within seven years your body will have changed
completely. So if you are going to live seventy years, ten times over
your body has renewed itself completely.
Every moment your body is changing, and your mind. You cannot recognize
a photograph of your childhood, and if it were possible to give you a
photograph of your mind, of your childhood mind, it would be impossible
to recognize it. Your mind is even more of a flux than your body. Every
moment everything changes. Even for a single moment nothing remains the
same. In the morning you were different as far as your mind is
concerned. In the evening you are totally a different person.
When someone would come to meet Buddha, before the person would depart,
take leave of him, Buddha would say, "Remember, the man who has come to
meet me is not the man who is going back. You are totally different now.
Your mind has changed." Meeting with a buddha is, of course, bound to
change your mind for better or worse, but you cannot be the same.
You came here with a different mind; you will go with a different mind.
Something has changed. Something new has been added, something has been
deleted. And even if you are not meeting anyone, if you are just
remaining by yourself, then too you cannot remain the same. Every moment
the river is moving.
Heraclitus has said, "You cannot step twice in the same river." The same
can be said about man: you cannot meet the same man again -- impossible!
And because of this fact, and because of our ignorance of it, life
becomes a misery -- because you go on expecting the other to be the
same. You marry a girl and you expect her to be the same. She cannot be!
Unmarried, she was different; married, she is completely different. A
lover is something else, a husband is something totally different. You
cannot expect your lover to meet you through your husband. That is
impossible. A lover is a lover; a husband is a husband. The moment a
lover becomes a husband, everything has changed. But you go on
expecting. That creates misery -- unnecessary misery. If we can
recognize this fact that mind goes on moving and changing continuously,
we will escape many, many miseries without any cost. All you need is
simple awareness that mind changes.
Someone loves you and then you go on expecting love. But the next moment
he hates you; then you are disturbed -- not because of his hate, but
only because of your expectation. He has changed. He is alive, so he is
bound to change. But if you can see the reality as it is you will not be
disturbed. The one who was in love a moment before can be in hate a
moment later, but wait! One moment later he will be in love again. So
don't be in a hurry, just be patient. And if the other can also see this
changing pattern, then he will not be fighting for changing patterns.
They change; that is natural.
So if you look at your body, it changes. If you try to understand your
mind, it changes. It is never the same. Even for two consecutive
moments, nothing is the same. Your personality goes on like a flux. If
this is all and there is nothing which remains the same continuously,
eternally, timelessly, then who will remember that this was "my
childhood"? Childhood has changed, the body has changed, the mind has
changed. Then who remembers? Then who knows about childhood and about
youth and about old age? Who knows?
This knower must remain the same; this witness must remain the same.
Only then can the witness have a perspective. The witness can say, "This
was my childhood, this was my young age, this was my old age. This
moment I was in love, and this moment the love changed into hatred."
This witnessing consciousness, this knower, is always the same.
So you have two realms or two dimensions existing together in you. You
are both -- the changing which is always changing and the non-changing
which is always remaining non-changing. If you become aware of these two
realms, then this technique will be helpful: "BE THE UNSAME SAME."
Remember this: "BE THE UNSAME SAME." You are bound to be "unsame" on the
periphery, but at the center remain the same.
Remember that which is the same. Just remembering will be enough; you
need not do anything else. It is non-changing. You cannot change it, but
you can forget it. You can be so engrossed, obsessed with the changing
world around you -- with your body, with your mind -- that you may
completely forget the center. The center is so much clouded by the
changing flux -- and, of course, there are problems: that which is
constantly the same is difficult to remember because change creates
problems.
For example, if a constant noise goes on around you, you will not be
aware of it. If a clock on the wall goes on, tick-tock, tick-tock the
whole day, you are never aware of it. But if suddenly it stops, you will
immediately become aware. If something is constantly the same, there is
no need to take any notice. When something changes, the mind has to take
notice. It creates a gap, and the pattern vibrates. You were hearing it
continuously, so there was no need to hear it. It was there, it became
part of the background. But if now suddenly the clock stops, you will
become aware. Your consciousness will suddenly come to the gap.
It is just as if one of your teeth falls out; then your tongue goes
continuously to the place. When the tooth was there the tongue never
tried to touch it. Now the tooth is not there -- just a gap is there --
then the whole day, howsoever you try, you cannot help it: the tongue
goes to the gap. Why? Because something is missing and the background
has changed. Something new has entered.
Whenever something new enters, you become conscious -- for many reasons.
It is a safety measure. It is needed for your life -- to survive. When
something changes you have to become aware. It may be dangerous. You
have to take notice, and you have to adjust again to the new situation
that has come into being. But if everything is as it was, there is no
need. You need not be aware. And this same element in you, what Hindus
have called ATMAN, the soul, has been there always from the very
beginning, if there was any beginning. And it is going to the very end,
if there is going to be any end. It has been eternally the same, so how
can you be aware of it?
Because it is so permanently the same, eternally the same, you are
missing it. You take notice of the body, you take notice of the mind
because they are changing. And because you take notice of them, you
start thinking that you are them. You know only them; you become
identified.
The whole spiritual effort is to find the same amidst the unsame -- to
find the eternal in the changing, to find that which is always the same.
That is your center, and if you can remember that center, only then will
this technique be easy -- or if you can do this technique, remembering
will become easy. From both the ends you can travel.
Try this technique. The technique is to "BE THE UNSAME SAME TO FRIEND AS
TO STRANGER." To the friend and to the enemy, or to the stranger, be the
"unsame same." What does it mean? It seems contradictory. In a way you
will have to change, because if your friend comes to meet you, you will
have to meet him differently, and if a stranger comes you will have to
meet him differently. How can you meet a stranger as if you know him
already? You cannot. The difference will be there, but still, deep down
remain the same. The attitude must remain the same, but the behavior
will be "unsame." You cannot meet an unknown person as if you know him
already. How can you? You can pretend at the most, but pretensions will
not do. The difference will be there.
There is no need to pretend with a friend that he is a friend. With a
stranger, even if you try to act as if he is a friend, it will be
pretension -- something new. You cannot be the same; unsameness will be
necessary. As far as behavior is concerned you will be different, but as
far as your consciousness is concerned you can be the same. You can look
at the friend as at the stranger.
It is difficult. You may have heard, "Look at the stranger as if he is a
friend," but that is not possible if what I am saying is not possible.
First look at your friend as the stranger; only then you can look at the
stranger as at the friend. They are correlated.
Have you ever looked at your friends as if they are strangers? If you
have not, then you have not looked at all. Look at your wife: do you
really know her? You may have lived with her for twenty years or even
more, and the more you live with her, the more is the possibility that
you will go on forgetting that she is a stranger -- and she remains a
stranger. Howsoever you love her, it will not make any difference.
Really, if you love her more, the more strange she will look -- because
the more you love, the deeper you penetrate and the more you know how
river-like she is, moving, changing, alive, every moment different. If
you don't look deeply, if you just stick to the level that she is your
wife, that this is her name or that, then you have chosen a particular
fragment, and you go on thinking of that particular fragment as your
wife. And whenever she has to change, she has to hide her changes. She
may not be in a loving mood, but she has to pretend because you expect
love from your wife.
Then everything becomes false. She is not allowed to change; she is not
allowed to be herself. Then something is being forced. Then the whole
relationship goes dead. The more you love, the more you will feel the
changing pattern. Then each moment you are a stranger. You cannot
predict; you cannot say how your husband is going to behave tomorrow
morning. You can predict only if you have a dead husband: then you can
predict. Predictions are possible only about things, never about
persons. If some person is predictable, know well he is dead; he has
died. His living is just false, so you can predict. Nothing is
predictable about persons because of the change.
Look at your friend as at a stranger; he is one! Don't be afraid. We are
afraid of strangers, so we go on forgetting that even a friend is a
stranger. If you can look at the stranger in your friend also, you will
never get frustrated because you cannot expect anything from a stranger.
You take your friends for granted; hence, expectations and then
frustrations -- because no one can fulfill your expectations, no one is
here to fulfill your expectations. Everyone is here to fulfill his own
expectations; no one is here to fulfill you. Everyone is here to fulfill
himself or herself, but you expect others to fulfill you and others
expect you to fulfill them. Then there is conflict, violence, struggle
and misery.
Go on always remembering the stranger. Don't forget, even your closest
friend is a stranger -- as far removed from you as possible. If this
feeling happens to you, this knowing, then you can look at the stranger
and you can find a friend there also. If a friend can be a stranger,
then a stranger can be a friend. Look at a stranger: he doesn't know
your language, he doesn't belong to your country, he doesn't belong to
your religion, he doesn't belong to your color. You are white and he is
black or you are black and he is white. You cannot communicate through
language; you don't belong to the same church. So there is no common
ground in nation, religion, race or color -- no common ground! He is
totally a stranger. But look into his eyes, and the same humanity is
there, that is the common ground; and the same life, that is the common
ground; and the same existence, that is the root of your being friends.
You may not understand his language, but you can understand him. Even
silence can be communicative. Just by your looking deep down into his
eyes, the friend will be revealed. And if you know how to look, then
even an enemy cannot deceive you. You can look at the friend in him. He
cannot prove that he is not your friend. Howsoever far removed, he is
near you because you belong to the same existential current, to the same
river to which he belongs. You belong to the same earth of being.
If this happens, then even a tree is not far away from you, then even a
stone is not far away from you. A stone is very strange. There is no
meeting ground, no possibility of any communication -- but the same
existence is there. The stone also exists, the stone also participates
in being. He is there -- I call it "he" -- he also takes up space, he
also exists in time. The sun also rises for him -- as it rises for you.
One day he was not, as you were not, and one day you will die and he
will also die. The stone will disappear. In existence we meet. The
meeting is the friendship. In personality we differ, in manifestation we
differ; in essence we are one.
In manifestations we are strangers, so howsoever close we come we remain
far away. You can sit close, you can embrace each other, but there is no
possibility to come more close. As far as your changing personality is
concerned, you are never the same. You are never similar; you are always
strangers. You cannot meet there because before you can meet you have
changed. There is no possibility of meeting. As far as bodies are
concerned and minds are concerned there can be no meeting, because
before you can meet you are no more the same.
Have you ever observed? You feel love for someone -- a very deep
upsurge. You are filled with it, and the moment you go and say, "I love
you," it has disappeared. Have you observed? It may not be there now, it
may be just a memory. It was there, but it is not there now. The very
fact that you asserted it, made it manifest, has made it enter into the
realm of change. When you felt it, it may have been deep in the essence,
but when you bring it out you are bringing it into the pattern of time
and change, it is entering into the river. When you say, "I love you,"
by then it may have disappeared completely. It is so difficult, but if
you observe, it will become a fact. Then you can look. In the friend
there is the stranger and in the stranger the friend. Then you can
remain "THE UNSAME SAME." You change peripherally; you remain the same
in the essence, in the center.
"IN HONOR AND DISHONOR..." Who is honored and who is dishonored? You?
Never! Only that which is changing, and that you are not. Someone honors
you; if you take it that he is honoring YOU, you will be in difficulty.
He honors a particular manifestation in you, not you. How can he know
you? You don't even know yourself. He honors a particular manifestation;
he honors something which has come into your changing personality. You
are kind, loving; he honors it. But this kindness and this love are just
on the periphery. The next moment you will not be loving, you may be
filled with hate. There may be no flowers -- only thorns. You may not be
so happy. You may be just sad, depressed. You may be cruel, angry. Then
he will dishonor you. Then again the loving manifestation. Others come
in contact not with you, but with your manifestations.
Remember this, they are not honoring and dishonoring YOU. They cannot do
either because they don't know you; they cannot know you. If even you
are not aware of yourself, how can they be? They have their own
formulas, they have their theories, they have their measurements and
criteria. They have their touchstones and they say, "If a man is such
and such we will honor him, and if a man is such and such we will
dishonor him." So they act according to their criteria, and you are
never near their touchstones -- only your manifestations.
They can call you a sinner one day and a saint another. They can call
you a saint today, and the next day they may go against you, stone you
to death. What is happening? They come in contact with your periphery,
they never come in contact with you. Remember this, that whatsoever they
are saying, it is not about you. You remain beyond; you remain outside.
Their condemnations, their appreciations, whatsoever they do is not
really concerned with you, just with your manifestations in time.
I will tell you one Zen anecdote. One young monk lived near Kyoto. He
was beautiful, young, and the whole town was pleased. They honored him.
They believed him to be a great saint. Then one day everything turned
upside down. One girl became pregnant, and she told her parents that
this monk was responsible. So the whole town turned against him. They
came, and they burned his cottage. It was morning, and a very cold
morning, a winter morning, and they threw the child onto the monk.
The father of the girl told him, "This is your child, so take the
responsibility."
The monk simply said, "Is it so?" And then the child started weeping, so
he forgot about the crowd and began caring for the child.
The crowd went and destroyed the whole cottage, burned it down. Then the
child was hungry and the monk was without any money, so he had to go to
beg in the city for the child. Who will give him anything now? Just a
few moments before he was a great saint, and now he is a great sinner.
Who will give him anything now? Wherever he tried, they closed their
doors in his face. They condemned him completely.
Then he reached to the same house -- to the house of the girl. The girl
was very much distressed, and then she heard the child weeping and
screaming, and the monk standing there just saying, "Don't give anything
to me, I am a sinner. But the child is not a sinner; you can give milk
to this child." Then the girl confessed that just to hide the real
father of the child, she had taken the name of the monk. He was
absolutely innocent.
So the whole town turned around again. They fell at his feet, started
asking his forgiveness. And the father of the girl came, took the child
back with weeping eyes, tears rolling down, and he said, "But why did
you not say so before? Why did you not refuse in the morning? The child
does not belong to you."
The monk is reported to have said again, "Is it so?" In the morning he
had said, "Is it so? This child belongs to me?" And in the afternoon he
said, "Is it so? This child doesn't belong to me?"
This is how this sutra has to be applied in life. In honor and dishonor,
you must remain "THE UNSAME SAME." The innermost center must remain the
same, whatsoever happens to the periphery. The periphery is bound to
change, but you must not change. And because you are two, the periphery
and the center, that is why opposite, contradictory terms have been
used: "BE THE UNSAME SAME..." And you can apply this technique to all
opposites: in love and hate, poverty and richness, comfort and uncomfort,
or in anything, remain "THE UNSAME SAME."
Just know that the change is happening only to your periphery; it cannot
happen to you, it is impossible. So you can remain detached, and this
detachment is not forced. You simply know it is so. This is not a forced
detachment; this is not any effort on your part to remain detached. If
you TRY to remain detached, you are still on the periphery; you have not
known the center. The center is detached; it has always been so. It is
transcendental. It is always the beyond. Whatsoever happens below never
happens to it.
Try this in polar situations. Go on feeling something in you which is
the same. When someone is insulting you, focus yourself to the point
where you are just listening to him -- not doing anything, not reacting
-- just listening. He is insulting you, and then someone is praising
you. Just listen. Insult-praise, honor-dishonor: just listen. Your
periphery will get disturbed. Look at it also; don't change it. Look at
it; remain deep in your center, looking from there. You will have a
detachment which is not forced, which is spontaneous, which is natural.
And once you have the feeling of the natural detachment, nothing can
disturb you. You will remain silent. Whatsoever happens in the world,
you will remain unmoved. Even if someone is killing you, only the body
will be touched -- not you. You will remain beyond. This "beyondness"
leads you into existence, into that which is bliss, eternal, into that
which is true, which is always, into that which is deathless, into life
itself. You may call it God or you can choose your term. You can call it
NIRVANA, whatsoever you like, but unless you move from the periphery to
the center and unless you become aware of the eternal in you, religion
has not happened to you, neither has life happened to you. You are
missing, simply missing all. That is possible -- to miss the ecstasy of
living.
Shankara says that "I call the man a SANNYASIN who knows what is
changing and what is non- changing, who knows what is moving and what is
non-moving." This, in Indian philosophy, is known as discrimination --
VIVEK. To discriminate between these two, the realm of the change and
the realm of the unchanging -- this is called VIVEK, discrimination,
awareness.
This sutra can be used very, very deeply and very easily with whatsoever
you are doing. You feel hunger? Remember the two realms. Hunger can only
be felt by the periphery because the periphery needs food, needs fuel.
You don't need food, you don't need any fuel, but the body needs them.
Remember, when hunger happens it is happening to the periphery; you are
just the knower of it. If you were not there, it would not be known. If
the body were not there, it would not happen. By your absence only
knowledge will not be there because the body cannot know. The body can
have it, but it cannot know it. You know it; you cannot have it.
So never say that "I am hungry." Always say within, "I know that my body
is hungry." Give emphasis to your knowing. Then the discrimination is
there. You are becoming old: never say, "I am becoming old." Just say,
"My body is becoming old." Then in the moment of death also you will
know, "I am not dying; my body is dying. I am changing bodies, just
changing the house." If this discrimination deepens, one day, suddenly,
there will be enlightenment.
"HERE IS THE SPHERE OF CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE. THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME
CHANGE."
The first thing to understand is that everything you know about is
change; except for you, the knower, everything is change. Have you seen
anything which is not change? This whole world is a phenomenon of
change. Even the Himalayas are changing. They say -- the scientists who
work on it -- that they are growing; these Himalayas are the youngest
mountains in the world, still a child, really, still growing. They have
not yet become mature; they have not reached to the point from where
something begins to decline. They are still rising.
If you compare them with Vindhyachal, another mountain, they are just
children. Vindhyachal is one of the oldest -- and some say the oldest
mountain in the world. It is so old, it is decreasing -- coming down.
For centuries, it is coming down -- just dying, in its old age. So even
a Himalaya which looks so stable, unchanging, unmoving, is changing. It
is just a river of stones. Stones make no difference; they are also
river-like, floating. Comparatively everything is changing. Something
looks more changing, something looks less changing, but that is only
relative.
Nothing is unchanging that you can know. Remember my point: nothing that
you can know is unchanging. Nothing is unchanging except the knower. But
that is always behind. It always "knows"; it is really never known. It
can never become the object; it is always the subject. Whatsoever you do
or know, it is always behind. You cannot know it. When I say this, don't
get disturbed. When I say that you cannot know it, I mean you cannot
know it as an object. I can look at you, but how can I look at myself in
the same way? It is impossible because to be in a relationship of
knowledge two things are needed -- the knower and the known.
So when I look at you, you are the known and I am the knower, and the
knowledge can exist as a bridge. But where to make the bridge when I
look at myself, when I am trying to know myself? There only I am, alone
-- totally alone. The other bank is missing, so where to create the
bridge? How to know myself?
So self-knowledge is a negative process. You cannot know yourself
directly; you can simply go on eliminating objects of knowledge. Go on
eliminating the objects of knowledge. When there is no object of
knowledge, when you cannot know anything, when there is nothing but the
vacuum, the emptiness -- and this is what meditation is: just
eliminating all objects of knowledge -- then a moment comes when
consciousness is, but there is nothing to be conscious of; knowing is,
but there is nothing to know. The simple, pure energy of knowing remains
and nothing is left to be known. There is no object.
In that state when there is nothing to be known, it is said that you
know yourself in a certain sense. But that KNOWLEDGE is totally
different from all other knowledge. It is misleading to use the same
word for both. There have been mystics who have said that self-knowledge
is contradictory, the very term is contradictory. Knowledge is always of
the other; self-knowledge is not possible. But when the other is not,
something happens. You may call it "self-knowledge," but the word is
misleading.
So whatsoever you know is change. Everywhere, even these walls, are
constantly changing. Now physics supports this. Even the wall which
looks so stationary, non-changing, is changing every moment. A great
flux is on. Every atom is moving, every electron is moving. Everything
is moving fast, and the movement is so fast that you cannot detect it.
That is why the wall looks so permanent. In the morning it was like
this, in the afternoon it was like that, in the evening it was like
this, yesterday it was like this and tomorrow it will be like this. You
look at it as if it is the same, but it is not. Your eyes are not
capable of detecting such great movement.
The fan is there. If the fan is moving very fast, you will not be able
to see the space, it will look like just one circle. Space cannot be
seen because the movement is fast, and if the movement is so fast --
just as fast as electrons are moving -- you will not see that the fan is
moving at all. You will not be able to detect the movement. The fan will
look stationary; you will even be able to touch it. It will be
stationary, and your hand will not even be able to enter into the gaps,
because your hand cannot move so fast as to go into the gaps. Before you
move, another blade will have come. Before you move, still another blade
will have come. You will always touch the blade, and the movement will
be so fast that the fan will look like it is non-moving. So things that
are non-moving are very fast moving: that is why there is the appearance
that they are stationary.
This sutra says that everything is change: "HERE IS THE SPHERE OF
CHANGE..." On this sutra Buddha's whole philosophy stands. Buddha says
that everything is a flux, changing, non-permanent, and that one should
know this. Buddha's emphasis is so much on this point. His whole
standpoint is based on it. He says, "change, change, change: remember
this continuously." Why? If you can remember change, detachment will
happen. How can you be attached when everything is changing?
You look at a face; it is very beautiful. When you look at a face that
is very beautiful, there is a feeling that this is going to remain.
Understand it deeply. Never expect that this is going to remain. But if
you know that this is changing fast, that this is beautiful this moment
and it may be ugly the next, how can you feel any attachment? It is
impossible. Look at a body: it is alive; the next moment it will be
dead. All is futile, if you feel the change.
Buddha left his palace, his family -- his beautiful wife, his child --
and when someone asked him, "Why?" he said, "Where there is nothing
permanent, what is the use? The child will die." And the night Buddha
left, the child was born. He was just a few hours old. Buddha went into
his wife's room to have a last look. The wife's back was towards the
door. She was holding the child in her arms in sleep. Buddha wanted to
say goodbye, but then he resisted. He said, "What is the use?"
A moment came in his mind when a thought flashed that "The child is just
one day old, a few hours old, and I must have a look." But then he said,
"What is the use? Everything is changing. This day the child is born,
and the next day the child will die. And one day before he was not here.
Now he is here, and one day again he will not be here. So what is the
use? Everything is changing." He left -- turned back and left.
When someone asked, "Why have you left all that?" he said, "I am in
search of that which never changes, because if I stick to that which
changes there is going to be frustration. If I cling to that which is
changing, I am stupid, because it will change, it will not remain the
same. Then I will be frustrated. So I am in search of that which never
changes. If there is anything which never changes, only then does life
have any worth and meaning. Otherwise everything is futile." He based
his whole teaching on change.
This sutra is beautiful. This sutra says, "THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME
CHANGE." Buddha would never say the second part. The second part is
basically tantric. Buddha will say that everything is change; feel it,
and then you will not cling to it. And when you don't cling to it, by
and by, by leaving everything that changes, you will fall into yourself
to the center where there is no change. Just go on eliminating change,
and you will come to the unmoving, to the center -- the center of the
wheel. That is why Buddha has chosen the wheel as the symbol of his
religion: because the wheel moves, but the center on which it moves
remains unmoving. So the SANSARA -- the world -- moves like a wheel.
Your personality moves like a wheel, and your innermost essence remains
the center on which the wheel moves. It remains unmoving.
Buddha will say life is change. He will agree with the first part. The
next -- the second part -- is typically tantric: "THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME
CHANGE." Tantra says don't leave that which is changing; move into it.
Don't cling, but move. Why be afraid? Move into it, live it out. Allow
it to happen, and you move into it. Consume it through itself. Don't be
afraid, don't escape. Where will you escape? How can you escape?
Everywhere there is change. Tantra says everywhere is change. Where will
you escape? Where can you go?
Wherever you go the change will be there. All escape is futile, so don't
try to escape. Then what to do? Don't cling. Live the change, be the
change. Don't create any struggle with it. Move with it. The river is
flowing; you flow with it. Don't even swim; allow the river to take you.
Don't fight with it, don't waste your energy by fighting with it; just
relax. Be in a let-go and move with the river.
What will happen? If you can move with a river without any conflict,
without any direction of your own, if the river's direction is your
direction, suddenly you will become aware that you are not the river.
You will become aware that you are not the river! Feel it. Some day try
it in a river. Go there, relax, and allow the river to take you. Don't
fight; become the river. Suddenly you will feel that the river is all
around, but you are not the river.
In fighting you may forget this. That is why tantra says, "THROUGH
CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE." Don't fight. There is no need because in you the
change cannot enter. So don't be afraid. Live in the world. Don't be
afraid because in you the world cannot enter. Live it. Don't choose this
way or that.
There are two types of people: one that will cling to the world of
change and one that will escape. But tantra says it is change, so to
cling is futile and to escape also. What is the use? Buddha says, "What
is the use of remaining in the world of change?" Tantra says, "What is
the use of escaping from it?"
Both are futile. Rather, allow it to happen. You are not concerned with
it; it is happening, you are not even needed for it. You were not and
the world was changing, and you will not be and the world will go on
changing -- so why create any fuss about it?
"CONSUME CHANGE THROUGH CHANGE." This is a very deep message. Consume
anger through anger, consume sex through sex, consume greed through
greed, consume the SANSARA through the sansara. Don't fight with it, be
relaxed, because fight creates tensions and fight creates anxiety,
anguish, and you will be unnecessarily disturbed. Allow the world to be
as it is.
There are two types of persons. One type is those persons who cannot
allow the world to be as it is. They are called revolutionaries. They
will change it, they will struggle to change it. They will destroy their
whole life in changing it, and it is already changing. They are not
needed, they will only consume themselves. They will burn out in
changing the world, and it is already changing. No revolution is really
needed. The world is a revolution; it is changing.
You may wonder why India has not created great revolutionaries. It is
because of this insight that everything is already changing. Why are you
disturbed to change it? You can neither change it nor stop the change.
It IS changing. Why waste yourself?
One type of personality always tries to change the world. In religion's
eyes he is neurotic. Really, he is afraid of coming to himself, so he
goes on and becomes obsessed with the world. The state has to be
changed, the government has to be changed, the society, the structure,
the economics, everything has to be changed, and he will die, and he
will never have a moment of ecstasy in which he could know what he was,
and the world will continue and the wheel will go on moving. It has seen
many revolutionaries, and it goes on moving. Neither can you stop it nor
can you accelerate the change.
This is a mystic's attitude: mystics say there is no need to change the
world. But mystics are also of two types. One will say there is no need
to change the world, but there is a need to change oneself. He also
believes in changing -- not in changing the world, but himself.
But tantra says there is no need to change anyone -- neither the world
nor yourself. That is the deepest core of mysticism. You need not change
the world and you need not change yourself. You are just to know that
everything is changing, and to float in the change and relax in the
change.
And the moment there is no effort to create any change, you can relax
totally -- because if the effort is there you cannot relax. Then tension
will be there because in the future something of value is going to
happen: the world is going to change. The world is going to become
communistic, or the earthly paradise is to come, or some utopia in the
future, or you are going to enter into the Kingdom of God, or into
MOKSHA. Somewhere in paradise the angels are waiting to welcome you --
but "somewhere" is the future. With this attitude you are going to be
tense.
Tantra says forget it. The world is already changing and you are also
already changing. Change is existence, so don't become worried about it.
It is already happening without you; you are not needed. You just float
in it with no anxiety for the future, and suddenly amidst change you
will become aware of a center within you which never changes, which has
remained always as it is -- the same.
Why does it happen? Because if you are relaxed, then the changing
background gives you the contrast, and through it you can feel the
non-changing. If you are in any effort to change the world or yourself,
you cannot look at the small unmoving center within you. You are so much
obsessed with change, you are not able to have a look at what is the
case.
The change is all around. The change becomes the background, the
contrast, and you are relaxed. So there is no future in your mind -- no
future thoughts. You are here now; this moment is all. Everything is
changing, and suddenly you become aware of a point within you which has
never changed. "THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE." This is what is meant by
"THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE."
Don't fight. Through death become deathless; through death allow the
death to die. Don't fight with it. The tantra attitude is difficult to
conceive of, because our minds want to do something and this is a
non-doing. It is just relaxing, not doing, but this is one of the most
hidden secrets. If you can feel this, you need not bother about anything
else. This one technique can give you all.
Then you need not do anything because you have come to know the secret
that through change, change can be consumed, and through death, death
can be consumed, and through sex, sex can be consumed, and through
anger, anger can be consumed. Now you have come to know the secret that
through poison, poison can be consumed.
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