WHEN A MOONLESS RAINY NIGHT IS NOT PRESENT, CLOSE EYES AND FIND BLACKNESS BEFORE YOU. OPENING EYES, SEE BLACKNESS. SO FAULTS DISAPPEAR FOREVER.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS, AT THIS VERY POINT, EXPERIENCE.

Once a doctor, a very well known historian and an eminent scholar, was staying in a village. The postmaster, the old postmaster of the village, became curious about this old man, this doctor. He was curious to know what kind of doctor he is, so one day he asked, `What kind of doctor are you sir?'

The man said, `Doctor of Philosophy.'

The old man had never heard about it. He was puzzled and he said, `I have never heard of any case of this disease here.'

Don't laugh about it, because that old postmaster was right in a way -- philosophy is a kind of disease. Of course, doctors of philosophy are not doctors; rather, they are the perfect victims of a disease.

Philosophy is not a specific disease, so you cannot think of it in terms of cases. It is born with the human being. It is as old as humanity or the human mind. And every human being is a victim, more or less -- because thinking leads nowhere; or, it leads you in circles, vicious circles. You move much, and if you are expert you can move fast, but you reach nowhere.

This has to be understood very deeply, because if you cannot understand and feel this, you cannot take a jump into meditation. Meditation means the very anti approach -- anti to philosophy. Philosophy means thinking and meditation means a state of non-thinking. They are polar opposites.

This is just human -- to think about questions and to try to find out answers. But philosophy comes to no answers. Science comes to certain answers, religion comes to certain answers, but philosophy comes to no answers. And all the answers that philosophy appears to come to are just facades: if you dig deep in them you will find more questions and nothing else. So every answer leads to more questions -- and this goes on and on.

Science comes to certain answers, because science depends not on thinking but on experimentation. Thinking is used as a help only, but the base is experimentation. That's why science has given some answers. Philosophers, known and unknown, have been working and working for centuries, but not a single answer, not a single conclusion has been achieved. It cannot be achieved. The very nature of thinking is such that if you use thinking as a help towards experimentation, something can be achieved; that's why science comes to certain answers.

But religion also comes to certain answers, because religion is also experimentation. Science experiments with the object, religion experiments with the subject, but both are experimentations and both depend on experiment. Between these two is philosophy -- just pure thinking, abstract thinking, with no experiment. You can go on, you can go on, but you reach nowhere. Abstract thinking, speculative thinking, is thinking ad infinitum. You can enjoy, you can enjoy the journey, but there is no goal.

Religion and science are similar in a way -- both believe in experiment. Religious experiment is of course deeper than scientific, because in science the experimenter himself is not involved. He is working with tools, working with things, working with objects; he remains aloof, he remains out of the experiment. Religion is a deeper science, because the experimenter himself becomes the experiment. There are no tools which are apart from him, no objects which are outside him. He is both -- his tools, his objects, his method; he is everything. And he has to work upon himself.

It is arduous. Because you are involved, it is arduous. And because you are involved, the experiment will become experience. In science, the experiment will remain an experiment will remain an experiment. The scientist will not be touched by it, will not be transformed by it. The scientist will remain the same. But in religion, passing through the experiment, you will be a different man altogether. You cannot come out the same; you are bound to change. That's why religious experiment becomes experience.

Remember this: you can go on thinking about God, about soul, about the other world, and you may make believe that you know something about God just by thinking `about'. That will be false. You cannot know anything about God -- the word `about' is absurd. You can know God, but you cannot know `about' -- that `about' creates philosophy.

How can you know about God? Or, for example, how can you know about love? You can know love, you cannot about love, because `about' means someone else knows and you believe in his knowledge. You collect and gather opinions. You say, `I know something about God.' All knowledge which is `about' is false, dangerous, because you can be deluded by it.

You can know God, you can know love, you can know yourself, but forget that `about'. That `about' is philosophy. The Upanishads say something, the Vedas say something, the Bible says something, the Koran says something, but for you, all that will become `about'. Unless it becomes your experience it is futile, wasted.

This point must go deep within you, because you can go on thinking, and the mind is such that you can start thinking about meditation. You can make anything an object for meditation, for thinking. Even about meditation you can think, and you can go on thinking about it -- nothing will happen.

I am talking about so many methods. There is a danger: you may start thinking about these methods, you may become knowledgeable. That won't do, that is of no use. Not only is it of no use, it is dangerous -- because meditation is experience, knowing `about' is worthless.

Remember this word `experience'. Life's problems, all the problems of life, are existential, they are not speculative. You cannot solve them by thinking; you can solve them only by living them. Through living the future opens. Through thinking the future never opens. On the contrary, even the present closes.

You may not have observed: whenever you think, what happen? Whenever you think, you are closed. All that is present drops. You move on a dream-path in your mind. One word creates another, one thought creates another, and you go on moving. The more you move in thinking, the further away you go from existence. Thinking is a way to go away. It is a dream-way; it is dreaming in concepts. Come back to the earth. Religion is very earthly in this sense; not worldly but very earthly, substantial. Come back to existence.

Life's problems can be solved only when you become deeply rooted in existence. Flying in thoughts you move away from the roots, and the further away you are, the less is the possibility of solving anything. Rather, you will confuse everything, and everything will become more entangled. And the more entangled, the more you will think, and the further away you will move. Beware of thinking!

Now we will enter the techniques.

The first technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

IN RAIN DURING A BLACK NIGHT, ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS.

There has been one very old esoteric school about which you may not have heard. The school was known as the school of Essenes. Jesus was taught in that school; he belonged to the Essenes group. That Essenes group is the only group all over the world who thinks of God as absolute darkness. The Koran says God is light, the Upanishads say God is light, the Bible says God is light. The Essenes group is the only tradition in the world which says that God is absolute blackness, absolute darkness, just an infinite black night.

This is very beautiful; strange, but very beautiful -- and very meaningful. You must understand the meaning, then this technique will be very helpful, because this is the technique used by the Essenes to enter darkness, to become one with it.

Reflect. Why has God been symbolized everywhere as light? Not because God is light, but because man is afraid of darkness. This is human fear -- we like light and we are afraid of darkness, so we cannot conceive God as darkness, as blackness. This is human conception. We conceive God as light because we are afraid of darkness.

Our gods are created out of our fear. We give them shape and form. That shape and form is given by us -- it shows something about us, not about our gods. They are our creations. We are afraid in darkness, so God is light. But these techniques belong to the other school.

Essenes say that God is darkness, and there is something in it. One thing: darkness is eternal. Light comes and goes and darkness remains. In the morning the sun will rise and there will be light; in the evening the sun will set and there will be darkness. For darkness nothing will rise -- it is always there. It never rises and never sets. Light comes and goes; darkness remains. Light always has some source; darkness is without source. That which has some source cannot be infinite; only that which is sourceless can be infinite and eternal. Light has a certain disturbance; that's why you cannot sleep in light. It creates a tension. Darkness is relaxation, total relaxation.

But why are we afraid of darkness? Because light appears to us as life -- it is; and darkness appears to be death -- it is. Life comes through light, and when you die it appears you have fallen into eternal darkness. That's why we paint death as black, and black has become a color for mourning. God is light, and death is black. But these are our fears projected. Actually, darkness has infinity; light is limited. Darkness seems to be the womb out of which everything arises and into which everything falls.

Essenes took this standpoint. It is very beautiful and very helpful also, because if you can love darkness you will become unafraid of death. If you can enter into darkness -- and you can enter only when there is no fear -- you will achieve total relaxation. If you can become one with darkness, you are dissolved, it is a surrender. Now there is no fear, because if you have become one with darkness, you have become one with death. You cannot die now. You have become deathless. Darkness is deathless. Light is born and dies; darkness simply is. It is deathless.

For these techniques, first you will have to remember that there should be no fear in your mind about darkness, about blackness, otherwise how can you do this experiment? First the fear must be dropped. So do one thing as a preliminary step: sit in darkness, put off the lights, feel darkness. Have a loving attitude towards it; allow the darkness to touch you. Look at it. Open your eyes in a dark room or in a dark night; have a communion, be together, imbibe a relationship. You will become afraid -- then these techniques cannot be of any help, you cannot do them.

First a deep friendship with darkness is needed. Sometimes in the night when everyone has gone to sleep, remain with the darkness. Don't do anything, just remain with it. And just remaining with it will give you a deep feeling towards it, because it is so relaxing. You have not known it simply because of the fear. If you are not feeling sleepy, you will put on the light immediately, you will start reading or doing something, but you will not remain with the darkness. Remain with it. If you can remain with it, you will have new openings, new contacts with it.

Man has closed himself completely against darkness. There were reasons, historical reasons -- because the night was very dangerous, and man was in the caves or in the jungles. In the day he was more secure: he could see all around, and no wild animals could attack him; or, he could make some arrangements, some defence -- at least he could escape. But in the night everywhere was darkness and he was helpless, so he became afraid -- and that fear has gone into the unconscious; still we are afraid.

We are not living in caves now and we are not at the mercy of wild animals, no one is going to attack us -- but the fear is there, it has gone deep, because for millions of years the human mind was afraid. Your unconsciousness is not your own; it is collective, it is hereditary, it has come down to you. The fear is there, and because of that fear you can have no communion with darkness.

One thing more: because of this fear, man started to worship fire. When fire was discovered, fire became a god. Not that fire is a god, but because of the fear of darkness. In the day there was light and no fear -- man was more protected. In the night there was darkness, so when fire was discovered, of course, fire became a god -- the greatest. The Parsees still go on worshipping fire. The worship of fire came into being because of the fear of darkness. In the night the fire became the friend, the protector, the divine security.

That fear is still there. You may not be aware of it, because no situations are there in which you can become aware of it, but one day put off the light in the night and sit -- and the primitive fear will come to you. In your own house you will start feeling that some wild animals are around. Some noise will come, and you will become afraid of wild animals -- some danger is around. That danger is not around; that is in your unconscious.

So first you have to overcome your unconscious fear, and then you can enter these techniques, because these techniques are concerned with darkness. And Shiva is giving all the techniques that are possible.

My own experience with these techniques is very beautiful. If you can do them they are wonderful. You will enter such a deep relaxation that you have never known. But first uncover your unconscious fears and try to live and love darkness. It is very blissful. Once you know, and once you are in contact with it, you are in contact with a very deep cosmic phenomenon.

So whenever you have the opportunity to be in the dark, and awake.... Because you can do two things: either you can put on the light or you can go to sleep. Both are tricks to escape the darkness. If you are asleep then you are not afraid, because you are not conscious. Or, if you are conscious, then you will put on the light. Don't put on the light and don't go to sleep. Remain with darkness.

Many fears will be felt. Feel them. Be aware of them. Bring them to your conscious. They will come by themselves, and as they come, you remain just a witness.. They will disappear, and very soon a day will come when you can be in darkness with total surrender, with no fear. With a total let-go you can be in darkness. Then a very beautiful phenomenon happens. Then you can appreciate the saying of Essenes that God is darkness, absolute darkness.

IN RAIN DURING A BLACK NIGHT,

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS.

All forms arise out of darkness and dissolve into darkness. Worlds come, are created out of darkness, and they fall back into darkness. Darkness is the womb, the cosmic womb. The undisturbed, the absolute stillness is there.

Shiva says that it will be good to do this technique in a rainy night when everything is black, when clouds are there and no stars can be seen and the sky is completely dark. In a black night when there is no moon... ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS. Be a witness to that blackness, and then dissolve yourself into it. It is the form of all forms. You are a form -- you can dissolve into it.

When there is light, you are defined. I can see you, the light is there. Your body has a definition. You are defined, you have boundaries. Boundaries exist because of the light. When the light is not there, boundaries are dissolved. In blackness nothing is defined, everything merges into every other thing. Forms disappear.

That may be one of the causes of our fear -- because then you are not defined, then you don't know who you are. The face cannot be seen, the body cannot be known. Everything merges into a formless existence. That may be one of the causes of fear -- because you cannot feel your defined existence. Existence becomes vague and fear enters, because you don't know now who you are. The ego cannot exist: undefined, it is difficult to exist as an ego. One feels afraid. One wants light to be there.

Contemplating, meditating, merging, it will be easier to merge into darkness than to merge into light, because light gives distinctions. Darkness takes away all distinctions. In the light you are beautiful or ugly, rich or poor. The light gives you a personality, a distinctness -- educated, uneducated, saint or sinner. The light reveals you as a distinct person. Darkness envelops you, accepts you -- not as a distinct person; it simply accepts you without any definitions. You are enveloped and you become one.

The darkness is doing it always, but because you are afraid you cannot understand it. put aside your fear and become one.

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF ALL FORMS.

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS... How can you enter blackness? Three things. One: stare into blackness. Difficult. It is easy to stare at a flame, at any source of light, because it is there as an object, pointed; you can direct your attention to it. Darkness is not an object; it is everywhere, it is all around. You cannot see it as an object. Stare into the vacuum. All around it is there; you just look into it. Feel at ease and look into it. It will start entering your eyes. And when the darkness enters your eyes you are entering into it.

Remain with open eyes when doing this technique in the dark night. Don't close your eyes, because with closed eyes you have a different darkness. That is your own, mental; it is not real. If is not real. Really, it is a negative part; it is not positive darkness. Here is light: you close your eyes and you can have a darkness, but that darkness is simply the negative of the light. Just as when you look at the window and then you close your eyes you have a negative figure of the window. All our experience is of light, so when we close our eyes we have a negative experience of light which we call darkness. It is not real, it won't do.

Open your eyes, remain with open eyes in darkness, and you will have a different darkness -- the positive darkness that is there. Stare into it. Go on staring into darkness. Your tears will start, your eyes will get sore, they will hurt. Don't get worried, just go on. And the moment the darkness, the real darkness which is there, enters in your eyes, it will give you a very deep soothing feeling. When real darkness enters in you, you will be filled by it.

And this entering of darkness will empty you of all negative darkness. This is a very deep phenomenon. The darkness that you have within in a negative thing; it is against the light. It is not the absence of light; it is against the light. It is not the darkness that Shiva is speaking of as the form of all forms -- the real darkness that's there. We are so afraid of it that we have created many sources of light just as protection, and we live in a lighted world. Then we close our eyes and the lighted world reflects negatively inside. We have lost contact with the real darkness that is there -- the darkness of the Essenes, or the darkness of Shiva. We have no contact with it. We have become so much afraid of it that we have turned ourselves completely away. We are standing with our backs to it.

So this will be difficult, but if you can do it, it is miraculous, it is magical. You will have a different being altogether. When darkness enters you, you enter into it. It is always reciprocal, mutual. You cannot enter into any cosmic phenomenon without the cosmic phenomenon entering in you. You cannot rape it, you cannot force any entry. If you are available, open, vulnerable, and if you give way for any cosmic realm to enter in you, then only will you enter into it. It is always mutual. You cannot force; you can only allow it.

It is difficult to find real darkness in cities now; difficult in our houses to find real darkness. With the unreal light we have made everything unreal. Even our darkness is polluted, it is not pure. So it is good to move to some remote place only to feel darkness. Just go to a very remote village where there is no electricity, or move to a mountain peak. Just be there for one week to experience pure darkness.

You will come back a different man, because in those seven days of absolute darkness, all the fears, all the primitive fears, will come up. You will have to face monsters, you will have to face your own unconscious. The whole humanity will... it will be as if you are passing through the whole passage that has passed, and deep from your unconscious many things will arise. They will look real. You may get afraid, scared, because they will be so real -- and they are just your mental creations.

Many madmen in our mad asylums are suffering not from anything else but just from the primitive fears inside them which have erupted. The fears are there; the madmen are afraid, scared every moment of their lives. And we don't yet know how to allow those primitive fears to evaporate. If madmen can be helped to meditate on darkness, madness will disappear.

But only in Japan do they work a little towards this. With their madmen they behave absolutely differently. If someone goes mad, psychotic or neurotic, the Japanese method is to allow him to live in isolation for three weeks or for six weeks, as the case may need. They just allow him to live in isolation. No doctor, no psychoanalyst goes to him. Food is supplied, his needs are taken care of, and he is left alone.

In the night there is no light;in darkness he is alone -- suffering of course, passing through many phases. Every care is taken, but no companionship is given to him. He has to face his own madness immediately and directly. And within three to six weeks, the madness starts disappearing. Nothing has been done really; he has simply been left alone. This is the only measure that has been taken.

Western psychiatrists have become amazed. They can't understand really how it can happen, because they work for years. They psychoanalyze, they treat, they do everything, but they never leave the man alone. They never leave him to face his inner unconscious totally on his own. Because the more help you give, the more you make him helpless, because the more he depends on you. And the question is of an inner encounter; no one can help really. So those who know, they will leave you to face yourself.

You have to come to terms with your unconscious. And this meditation on darkness will absorb all your madness completely. Try it. Even in your home you can try it. Every night, for one hour remain with darkness. Don't do anything, just stare into darkness. You will have a melting feeling, and you will feel that something is entering you and you are entering into something.

Staying, living with darkness for three months, for one hour a day, you will lose all feeling of individuality, of separation. Then you will not be an island; you will become the ocean. You will be one with darkness. And darkness is so oceanic: nothing is so vast, nothing is so eternal. And nothing is so near you, and of nothing are you so scared and afraid. It is just by the corner, always waiting.

IN RAIN DURING A BLACK NIGHT,

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS.

Stare so that it enters in your eyes.

Secondly: lie down and feel as if you are near your mother. The darkness is the mother, the mother of all. Think: when there was nothing, what was there? You cannot think of anything else than darkness. If everything disappears, what will be there still? Darkness will be there.

Darkness is the mother, the womb, so lie down and feel that you are lying in the womb of your mother. And it will become real, it will become warm, and sooner or later you will start feeling that the darkness, the womb, is enveloping you from everywhere. You are in it.

And thirdly: moving, going to work, talking, eating, doing whatsoever, carry a patch of darkness within you. The darkness that has entered in you, just carry it. As we were discussing about the method of carrying a flame, carry darkness. And as I said to you that if you carry a flame and feel you are light, your body will start radiating a certain strange light and those who are sensitive will start feeling it, the same will happen with darkness.

If you carry darkness within you, your whole body will become so relaxed and calm, so cool, that it will be felt. And as when you carry light within you some people will become attracted to you, when you carry darkness within you some people will simply escape from you. They will become afraid and scared. They will not be able to bear so silent a being; it will become unbearable to them.

If you carry darkness within you, those who are afraid of darkness will try to escape from you; they will not come near you. And everyone is afraid of darkness. You will start feeling that friends are leaving you. Your family will get disturbed when you enter, because you enter like a pool of coolness, and everyone is agitated and excited. It will be difficult for them to look into your eyes, because your eyes will become deep like valleys, an abyss. If someone looks into your eyes he will become dizzy, such a deep abyss will be felt there.

But you will feel many things. It will be impossible for you to get angry. Carrying darkness within, you cannot be angry. Carrying a flame you can be angry very easily, more easily than ever, because the flame can excite you. Carrying a flame you will feel more sexual than ever, because the flame will excite you, it will create passion. But carrying darkness within you, you will feel a deep asexuality happening to you. You will not feel sexual; you will not be able to easily get into anger. Passion will disappear. You will not feel that you are a man or a woman. You will feel that those words have become irrelevant, meaningless. You simply are.

Carrying darkness within for the whole day will help you very much, because then when you contemplate and meditate on darkness in the night, the inner darkness that you have carried the whole day will help you to meet -- the inner will come to meet the outer.

And just be remembering that you are carrying darkness -- you are filled with darkness, every pore of the body, every cell of the body is filled with darkness -- you will feel so relaxed. Try it. You will feel so relaxed. Everything in you will be slowed down. You will not be able to run, you will walk, and that walk also will be slowed down. You will walk slowly, just as a pregnant woman walks. You will walk slowly, very carefully. You are carrying something.

And quite the opposite will happen when you are carrying a flame: your walk will become faster; rather, you would like to run. There will be more movement, you will become more active. Carrying darkness you will be relaxed. Others will start feeling that you are lazy.

In the days when I was at university, I was doing this experiment for two years. I became so lazy that even to get out of bed in the morning was difficult. My professors became very much disturbed about it, and they thought something had gone wrong with me -- either I was ill, or I had become absolutely indifferent. One professor who loved me very much, the head of my department, became so worried that on my examination days he would come to fetch me from the hostel in the morning just to lead me to the examination hall so that I could be there on time. Every day he would see that I had entered the hall, and only then would he feel okay and go home.

Try it. It is one of the most beautiful experiences in life to carry darkness in your womb, to become dark. Walking, eating, sitting, doing whatsoever, remember, the darkness is filled in you; you are filled with it. And then see how things change. You cannot get excited, you cannot be very active, you cannot be tense. Your sleep will become so deep that dreams will disappear and the whole day you will move as if intoxicated.

Sufis have used this method, a particular sect of Sufis, and those Sufis are known as drunken Sufis. They are drunk with this darkness. They make holes in the ground, and they lie down in the holes every night, and they meditate lying down in their holes -- meditating darkness, becoming one with it. And their eyes will show you that they are intoxicated. You can feel from their eyes such deep relaxation, such a relaxed vibration, that it can happen only if you are deeply intoxicated or feeling very sleepy. Only then can your eyes show that expression. They are known as drunken Sufis -- and they are drunk with darkness.

The second technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

WHEN A MOONLESS RAINY NIGHT IS NOT PRESENT. CLOSE EYES AND FIND BLACKNESS BEFORE YOU. OPENING EYES, SEE BLACKNESS: SO FAULTS DISAPPEAR FOREVER.

I said that if you close your eyes the blackness will be false, so what to do if there is no moonless night, no dark night? If there is a moon and the moonlight is there? This sutra gives a key.

WHEN A MOONLESS RAINY NIGHT IS NOT PRESENT

CLOSE EYES AND FIND BLACKNESS BEFORE YOU.

This blackness will be false in the beginning. You can make it real, and the method to make it real is -- OPENING EYES, SEE BLACKNESS. First close your eyes, see blackness. Then open the eyes, and the blackness that you have seen within, see it without. If it disappears without, that means that your blackness that you have seen within was false.

This is a little bit more difficult. In the first you carry the real darkness within. In the second you carry the false out -- go on carrying it. Close your eyes, feel darkness; open your eyes, and with open eyes see the darkness out. This is how you throw the inner false darkness out -- go on throwing it. It will take at least three to six weeks, and then one day suddenly you will be able to carry the inner darkness out. The day you can carry the inner darkness out, you have come upon the inner real darkness. The real can be carried; the false cannot be carried.

And it is a very magical experience. If you can carry the inner darkness out, even in a lightened room you can carry it out, and a patch of darkness spreads before you. The experience is very weird, because the room is lightened. Or even in sunlight... if you have come to the inner darkness you can bring it out. Then a patch of darkness comes before your eyes. You can go on spreading it.

Once you know that it can happen, you can have darkness, dark as the darkest night, in the full sunny day. The sun is there, but you can spread the darkness. The darkness is always there; even while the sun is there the darkness is there. You cannot see it; it is covered by the sunlight. Once you know how to uncover it, you can uncover it.

In Tibet they have many methods just like this. They can bring things from the inner world to the outer world. You may have heard of one very famous technique; they call it `heat yoga'. The night is cold, ice-cold, snow is falling, and a Tibetan monk, a Tibetan lama, can sit under the open sky with snow falling all around, the temperature below zero, and he can start perspiring. This is a medical miracle. How is he perspiring? He is bringing the inner heat out.

And the inner coolness or inner cold can also be brought out. In Mahavir's life it is related.... No one has tried to explain it up to now. Jains think that he was just doing an austerity; it is not so. It is related that whenever it was summer, the hot season, and the sun was burning hot, he would always stand somewhere where there was no shade, no tress, none at all. He would stand in the burning sun in the days of summer, and in winter he would find a cool place, the coolest -- under a tree, a shady tree, or near a river, or just where the temperature had gone below zero.

In the cold season he would find a cool place to meditate, and in the hot season he would find the hottest place to meditate. People thought that he was mad, and his followers think he was just doing austerities. It is not so. He was really trying some inner techniques like this.

When it was hot he was trying to bring his inner cold -- and it can be felt only in a contrast. When it was cold outside he was bringing his inner heat -- and it can be felt only when there is a contrast. He was not a body enemy, he was not against his body, as Jains think. They think that he was killing his body, because if you can kill your body, you can kill your desire. This is sheer nonsense. He was doing nothing of the sort. He was bringing the inner out, and he was protected by the inner. Just as Tibetan lamas can create heat and they can perspire while snow is falling, Mahavir would stand under a hot burning sun and he would not perspire. He was bringing his inner cold, and that inner cold would come out and protect his body.

Similarly you can bring your inner darkness, and that feeling is very cool. If you can bring it, you are protected by it: no excitement, no passion will disturb you. Try it. These three things: stare in darkness with open eyes and allow the darkness to enter within. Secondly: feel darkness as a mother's womb all around; live with it; forget yourself more and more in it. And thirdly: carry a patch of darkness in your heart wherever you go.

If you can do this, the darkness will become the light. You will be enlightened through darkness.

WHEN A MOONLESS RAINY NIGHT IS NOT PRESENT, CLOSE EYES AND FIND BLACKNESS BEFORE YOU. OPENING EYES, SEE BLACKNESS.

That's the method. First feel it inside, feel it deeply so you can perceive it out. Then open the eyes suddenly and feel it out. It will take time.

SO FAULTS DISAPPEAR FOREVER.

And if you can bring the inner darkness outside, faults disappear forever, because if the inner darkness is felt, you have become so pool, so silent, so unexcitable, that faults cannot remain with you.

Remember this: faults can exist only if you are prone to be excited, if you tend to be excited. They don't exist in themselves; they exist in your capacity to get excited. Someone insults you, and you have no darkness within to absorb the insult; you become inflamed, you get angry, you get fiery, and then everything is possible. You can be violent, you can kill, you can do what only a madman can do. Anything is possible -- you are now mad. Someone praises you: you again go mad to the other extreme.

All around you there are situations, and you are not capable of absorbing. Insult a Buddha: he can absorb it, he can simply swallow it, digest it. Who digests that insult? An inner pool of darkness, silence. You throw anything poisoned; it is absorbed. No reaction comes out of it.

Try this, and when someone insults you, just remember that you are filled with darkness, and suddenly you will feel there is no reaction. You pass through a street; you see a beautiful woman or a man -- you get excited. Feel that you are filled with darkness; suddenly the passion will disappear. You try it. This is absolutely experimental, there is no need to believe it.

When you feel that you are filled with passion or desire or sex, simply remember the inner darkness. For a single moment close your eyes and feel darkness and see -- the passion has disappeared, the desire is no more there. The inner darkness has absorbed it. You have become an infinite vacuum into which anything can fall and it will not return. You are now like an abyss.

That's why Shiva says: SO FAULTS DISAPPEAR FOREVER. These techniques appear so simple -- they are. But don't leave them without trying them because they appear so simple. They may not challenge your ego, but still try them. It always happens that we never try simple things, because we think they are so simple they cannot be true. And truth is always simple, it is never complex. There is no need for it to be complex. Only lies are complex. They cannot be simple, because if they are simple they will be caught immediately.

And because something appears simple we think nothing is possible out of it. Not that nothing is possible out of it, but because our ego gets challenged only when something is very difficult. Many schools and many systems have simply complicated their methods because of you. There is no need, but they have to create complexities, unnecessary hurdles, to make them difficult so that you feel good because your ego is challenged. If something is very difficult and only few can do it, then you feel, `Now, this is something to do, because only a few can do it; rarely can someone do it.'

These methods are absolutely simple. Shiva is not taking you into account. He is simply describing the exact method as it is -- as simply as possible, as telegraphically as possible, only the bare essentials. So don't seek any ego challenge. These techniques are not to send you on an ego trip. They may not challenge you, but if you can try them, they will transform you. And challenge is not good, because with challenge you get feverish, you get mad.

The third technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS, AT THIS VERY POINT: EXPERIENCE.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS, AT THIS VERY POINT, EXPERIENCE. What? What experience? In this technique, firstly you have to develop attention. You have to develop a sort of attentive attitude, only then will this technique become possible, so then wherever your attention alights you can experience -- you can experience yourself. Just by looking at a flower you can experience yourself. Then looking at a flower is not looking at the flower only, but at the looker also -- but only if you know the secret of attention.

You also look at a flower, and you may think you are looking at the flower, but you have started thinking about the flower, and the flower is missed. You are no more there, you have gone somewhere else, you have moved away. By attention is meant that when you are looking at a flower, you are looking at a flower and not doing anything else -- as if the mind has stopped, as if now there is no thinking and only a simple experience of the flower there. You are here, the flower is there, and between you two there is no thought.

Suddenly -- if this is possible -- suddenly, from the flower your attention will come back, bounce back to yourself. It will become a circle. You will look at the flower and the look will come back; the flower will reflect it, rebounce it. If there are no thoughts, this happens. Then you are not looking at the flower only, you are looking at the looker also. Then the looker and the flower have become two objects and you have become a witness of both.

But first attention has to be trained, because you have no attention at all. Your attention is just flickering, moving from this to that, from that to something further. Not for a single moment are you attentive. Even if I am talking here, you never hear all my words. You hear one word, then your attention goes somewhere else; then you come back, you hear another, then your attention goes somewhere else. You hear a few words, and you fill the gaps, and then you think you have heard me.

And whatsoever you carry with yourself, it is your own business, it is your own creation. Just a few words you have heard from me, and then you have filled the gaps, and whatsoever you fill in the gaps changes everything. I say a word, and you have started thinking about it. You cannot remain silent. If you can remain silent while hearing, you will become attentive.

Attention means a silent alertness with no thoughts interfering. Develop it. You can develop it only by doing it; there is no other way. Do it more and you will develop it. Doing anything, being anywhere, try to develop it.

You are travelling in a car, or in a train. What are you doing there? Try to develop attention; don't waste time. For half an hour you will be in a train: develop attention. Just be there. Don't think. Look at someone, look at the train or look outside, but be the look, don't think anything. Stop thinking. Be there and look. Your look will become direct, penetrating, and from everywhere your look will be reflected back and you will become aware of the looker.

You are not aware of yourself because there is a wall. When you look at a flower, first your thoughts change your look; they give their own color. Then that look goes to the flower. It comes back, but then again your thoughts give it a different color. And when it comes back it never finds you there. You have moved somewhere else, you are not there.

Every look comes back; everything is reflected, responsed, but you are not there to receive it. So be there to receive it. The whole day you can try it on many things, and by and by you will develop attentiveness. With that attentiveness do this:

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

Then look anywhere, but simply look. The attention has alighted -- and you will experience yourself. But the first requirement is to have the capacity to be attentive. And you can practise it. There is no need for it to take some extra time.

Whatsoever you are doing -- eating, taking a bath, standing under a shower -- just be attentive. But what is the problem? The problem is that we do everything with the mind, and we are planning continuously for the future. You may be travelling in a train, but your mind may be arranging other journeys; programming, planning. Stop this.

One Zen monk, Bokuju, has said, `This is the only meditation I know. While I eat, I eat. While I walk, I walk. And while I feel sleepy, I sleep. Whatsoever happens, happens. I never interfere.'

That's all there is -- don't interfere. And whatsoever happens, allow it to happen; you be simply there. That will give you attentiveness. And when you have attention, this technique is just in your hand.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

You will experience the experiencer; you will fall back to yourself. From everywhere you will be rebounded; from everywhere you will be reflected. The whole existence will become a mirror; you will be reflected everywhere. The whole existence will mirror you, and only then can you know yourself, never before.

Unless the whole existence becomes a mirror for you, unless every part of existence reveals you, unless every relationship opens you.... You are such an infinite phenomenon -- ordinary mirrors won't do. You are such a vast existence within, that unless the whole existence becomes a mirror you will not be able to get a glimpse. When the whole universe becomes a mirror, only then will you be mirrored. In you exists the divine.

And the technique to make existence a mirror is this: create attention, becomes more alert, and then wherever your attention alights -- wherever, on any object you alight -- suddenly experience yourself. This is possible, but right now impossible, because you don't fulfill the basic requirement.

You can look at a flower, but that is not attention. You are just running near the flower, around and around. You have seen the flower while running; you have not been there for a single moment. Then the whole life becomes meditative.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

Just remember yourself.

There is a deep reason because of which this technique can be helpful. You can throw a ball and hit the wall -- the ball will come back. When you look at a flower or at a face, a certain energy is being thrown -- your look is energy. And you are not aware that when you look, you are investing some energy, you are throwing some energy. A certain quantity of your energy, of your life energy, is being thrown. That's why you feel exhausted after looking in the street the whole day: people passing, advertisements, the crowd, the shops. Looking at everything you feel exhausted and then you want to close your eyes to relax. What has happened? Why are you feeling so exhausted? You have been throwing energy.

Buddha and Mahavir both insisted that their monks should not look too much; they must concentrate on the ground. Buddha says that you can only look up to four feet ahead. Don't look anywhere. Just look on the path where you are moving. To look four feet ahead is enough, because when you have moved four feet, again you will be looking four feet ahead. Don't look more than that, because you are not to waste energy unnecessarily.

When you look, you are throwing a certain amount of energy. Wait, be silent, allow that energy to come back. And you will be surprised. If you can allow the energy to come back, you will never feel exhausted. Do it. Tomorrow morning, try it. Be silent, look at a thing. Be silent, don't think about it, and wait patiently for a single moment -- the energy will come back; in fact, you may be revitalized.

People continuously ask me... I go on reading continuously so they ask me, `Why are your eyes still okay? You must have needed space long ago.'

You can read, but if you are reading silently with no thought, the energy comes back. It is never wasted. You never feel tired. My whole life I have been reading twelve hours a day, sometimes even eighteen hours a day, but I have never felt any tiredness. In my eyes I have never felt anything, never any tiredness. Without thought the energy comes back; there is no barrier. And if you are there you reabsorb it, and this reabsorption is rejuvenating. Rather than your eyes being tired they feel more relaxed, more vital, filled with more energy.