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.