MEDITATE ON THE MAKE-BELIEVE WORLD AS BURNING TO ASHES AND BECOME BEING ABOVE HUMANAS,

AS SUBJECTIVELY, LETTERS FLOW INTO WORDS AND WORDS INTO SENTENCES, AND AS, OBJECTIVELY, CIRCLES FLOW INTO WORLDS AND WORLDS INTO PRINCIPLES, FIND AT LAST THESE CONVERGING IN OUR BEING

All the enlightened ones, all the religions, agree on one thing only. Their disagreements are many, but there is one agreement amongst all, and that is that man, because of his ego, is closed to the reality. The ego is the only barrier; the feeling that I AM.

On this point Buddhas and Christs and Krishnas all agree. And because they all agree it seems to me that this is the basic thing in all religious endeavor. All else is accidental; this is essential -- that you are debarred because of your own ego.

What is this ego? Of what does it consist? How does it arise? And why does it become so important?

Look at your mind -- because you cannot understand the phenomenon of ego theoretically; you can only understand it existentially. Look at your mind, observe it, and you will come to a deep understanding. And if you can understand what the go is, there is no problem; it can be dropped easily. Rather, there is no need to drop it. If you can understand it, the very understanding becomes the dropping, because the ego is created through your non-understanding, it is created through your sleepiness.

If you become alert about it, if you focus your consciousness towards it, it disappears. It disappears -- just as when you bring light in a room and the darkness disappears. Even if you bring light to look at darkness, to see what darkness is... if you bring light it disappears. The ego exists because you have never been alert to your existence; it is a shadow of your non-alertness. So really, there is no need to drop it. If you can look at it, it drops by itself.

What is it? Have you ever felt any moment when there is no ego? Whenever you are silent, the ego is not. Whenever your mind is in turmoil, chattering, restless, the ego is there. Whenever you are relaxed, silent and calm, the ego is not. Just now, if you are silent, where is the ego? You will be there, but no feeling of `I'. So try to understand it existentially.

Right now as I am speaking, you can observe the fact that if you are silent, totally alert, you are there, but with no feeling of `I'. And just the contrary happen: if you are troubled, in conflict, in anxiety, you feel a centered ego within you. When you are in anger, in passion, violent, aggressive, you feel a crystallized ego within you. Whenever you are in love, in compassion, it is not there.

That's why we cannot love, because with the ego, love is impossible. That's why we go on talking so much about love, but we never are in love. And whatsoever we call love is more or less sex, it is not love; because you cannot lose your ego, and love cannot exist unless the ego has disappeared. Love, meditation, God, they all require one thing -- the ego must not be there. That's why Jesus is right in saying that God is love, because both phenomena happen only when the ego is not.

If you know love, there is no need to know God -- you have known him already. Love is just another name for it. If you know love, there is no need to go into meditation -- you have gone already. Love is just another name for it. So many techniques of meditation are needed, and so many teachers, and so many schools of meditation are needed, because there is no love. If love exists, there is no need to practice anything, because the thing has happened already. And the thing is the disappearance of the ego.

So the first thing to be understood: whenever you are silent, the ego is not. And don't believe in me. I am not talking about a theory; this is a fact. You need not take my opinion; you can observe it in yourself. And there is no need to postpone it for the future; right now you can observe the fact that if you are silent, you are -- but with no limitation, with no center. You exist without the center, there is no crystallized I. The presence is there, the consciousness is there, but there is no one who can say `I am'.

When you are silent, the ego is not. And when you are not silent, the ego is. So ego is the disease, all diseases combined together, hence the emphasis to surrender the ego. The emphasis is to surrender the disease.

Secondly: if in silence, for even a single moment you have the glimpse of your existence as egoless, then you can analyze it, and then you can enter the phenomenon of ego, of what it is. Thew mind is accumulated past. The mind is never here, it is never now. It is always from the past. It is accumulation. Mind is memory: all the experiences that you have gone through, all the information that you have come across, all the knowledge that you have gathered, heard, listened to, read -- that is accumulated. The mind is constantly accumulating.

The mind is the greatest accumulator; it goes on accumulating. Even while you are not conscious it goes on accumulating; even while you are asleep the mind is accumulating. You may not be aware of it. While you are asleep, and there is noise in the road, the mind is accumulating. You can be hypnotized in the morning and you can be asked about it, and you will say everything, you will relate everything -- whatsoever the mind has accumulated in the night. Even if you have fallen in a coma, or you are unconscious, or you have fallen in a fit, the mind is accumulating.

The mind doesn't need your consciousness to accumulate; it goes on accumulating. Even while you were in the womb of your mother the mind was accumulating. And through hypnosis the memories of your days in the womb of your mother can be awakened. You don't remember anything about taking birth, but the mind was accumulating. Whatsoever was happening, the mind was accumulating. And now it can be awakened again. Through hypnosis the memory can be brought again to your focus. And millions of memories are being accumulated -- this accumulation is the mind. Memory is the mind.

How is the I, the ego, created? The consciousness is within you, and around the consciousness all these memories are accumulated on the periphery. They are useful, and you cannot survive without them, they are needed, but then a new thing happens between these two, an epi-phenomenon.

Consciousness is within, you are within, without the I. There is no I within. You are, without a center. On the periphery, every moment knowledge, experience, memories, accumulate. This is the mind. And whenever you look at the world, you look through the mind. Whenever you pass through a new experience, you look through the memories, you interpret it through the memories. You look at everything through the past. The past becomes a mediator.

Constantly looking through the past, you get identified with it -- that identification is the ego. Let me put it in this way: the identification of the conscious with the memories is the ego. You say `I am a Hindu' or `I am a Christian' or `I am a Jain'. What are you doing? No one is born as a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Jain. You are simply born as a human being. Then you are taught, then you are conditioned to think that you are a Christian, a Hindu, or a Jain. This is a memory. You have been taught that you are a Christian. This is a memory, and now, whenever you look through this memory, you feel, `I am a Christian.'

Your consciousness is not Christian; it cannot be. It is simply consciousness. You have been taught that you are a Christian. This teaching is accumulated on the periphery. Now you look through the glasses and the whole world is colored. Those glasses stick too much and too deeply with you, and you are never away from them, you never put them aside. You have become so accustomed to them that you have forgotten that there are spectacles on your eyes. Then you say, `I am a Christian.'

Whenever you get identified with any memory, any knowledge, any experience, any name and form, that I is born. Then you are young, you are old; you are rich, you are poor; you are beautiful or you are not beautiful; you are educated or you are not educated; you are respected or you are not respected -- then you go on getting identified with things which accumulate around you and the ego is born. Ego is identification with the mind.

That's why when you are silent the ego is not, because when you are silent the mind is not functioning. That's what silence means. Whenever the mind is functioning you are not silent. You cannot be -- the functioning of the mind is the inner noise, the chattering, the constant chattering within you. When the chattering stops, or it is not there, or you have gone beyond it, or you have gone within, moved within, there is silence, and in that silence there is no ego.

But it happens only sometimes, and only for a moment, that you are silent. That's why you feel that those situations in which this happens are lovely. You start desiring those situations. You go to a hill, and while the sun is rising in the morning you look at it. Suddenly you have an upsurge of joy. You feel blissful, a beatitude descends upon you.

What has happened really? Because of the silent morning, and the silent rising of the sun, and the greenery, and the hill, suddenly your inner chattering has stopped. The phenomenon is so great -- all around you such beauty, such peace and tranquility -- that you have stopped for a moment. In that stopping you have realized a non-ego state -- for a single moment of course.

This can happen through many situations. In sex it happens, in music it can happen; in anything which is so great that you are overwhelmed, overpowered, and your constant chattering is put aside, forced aside for a moment, it will come again. Whenever you are egoless, accidentally or through some practice, you feel a subtle bliss which you have not felt before.

The bliss is not coming from outside. It is not coming from the hills or from the rising sun or from beautiful flowers; it is not coming from the sex act. It is not coming from outside. The outside is only creating an opportunity -- it is coming from inside. So if you repeat the outer situation again and again, it will not come, because you will get immune to it, you will get accustomed to it.

The same hill and the same morning... again you go there and you don't feel. You feel something is missing. Because for the first time it was so new that it stopped your mind completely. The wonder was so great and the miracle was so new, you couldn't continue with the past chattering. It stopped -- just in awe it stopped -- but next time you go there you know everything. There is no awe, no mystery -- the mind continues. This happens with every experience. In any experience, if you feel a joy, it will be destroyed if you repeat it, because then, in a repeated experience, you cannot put aside the mind.

So the second thing to remember is that mind is accumulation. Your consciousness is just hidden behind this accumulated past, and you are identified with it. Whenever you say `I am this, I am that', you are creating the ego.

Thirdly: if you can understand this, then the third point is not difficult, and that third point is that mind has to be used. There is no need to get identified; you can use it as an instrument -- and it is an instrument. There is no need to get identified with it. Remain always above it.

And really, you are always above it, because you are here, now, always present, and mind is always past. You are always ahead of it. It is just lagging behind you; it is a shadow. This very moment is a new thing; your mind cannot have it. A moment later it will be absorbed in the memory; then the mind can have it. Every single moment you are free.

That's why Buddha has emphasized the moment so much. He says, `Remain in the moment and there will be no mind.' But the moment is very atomic, it is very subtle; you can miss it easily. The mind is always the past -- whatsoever you have known -- and the reality that is passing just now is not part of the mind. It will become part of the mind a moment later.

If you can be aware of the reality here and now, you will remain always transcendental to the mind. And if you can remain transcendental to the mind -- always above, never entangled in it, using it, but never getting involved in it, using it as an instrument, never getting identified with it -- the ego will disappear. You will be egoless, and when you are egoless, nothing else is to be done. Then all else happens to you. You have become vulnerable, you have become open. Then the whole existence happens to you, then all the ecstasies are yours, then suffering is impossible. Suffering comes through the ego. Bliss comes through the egoless gate.

Now we will enter the techniques -- because these techniques are concerned with being egoless. Very simple techniques, but if you understand this background then you can do them, and much becomes possible through them.

The first technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

FOCUS ON FIRE RISING THROUGH YOUR FORM, FROM THE TOES UP UNTIL THE BODY BURNS TO ASHES, BUT NOT YOU.

FOCUS ON FIRE RISING THROUGH YOUR FORM, FROM THE TOES UP, UNTIL THE BODY BURNS TO ASHES BUT NOT YOU. A very simple technique and very wonderful, very easy to do, but some basic requirements are to be fulfilled beforehand. Buddha liked this technique very much; he initiated his disciples into this technique.

Whenever someone was initiated by Buddha, the first thing was this: he would tell him just to go to the burning place and observe a body being burned, a dead body being burned. For three months he was not to do anything, but just sit there and watch. So the seeker would go to the burning place of the village. He would stay there for three months, day and night, and whenever a dead body would come there he would just sit and meditate. He would just look at the dead body; then the fire would be created and then the body would start burning. And for three months continuously he would not do anything else -- just look at dead bodies being burned.

Buddha said, `Don't think about it. Just look at it." And it is difficult not to come upon the thought that sooner or later your body is going to be burned. Three months is a long time, and continuously, day and night, whenever there was a body to be burned, the seeker was to meditate. Sooner or later he would start seeing his own body on the burning pyre. He would start seeing himself being burned.

It will be helpful; if you want to do this technique, go to the burning place. Watch -- not for three months -- but at least watch one body being burned; observe it. Then you can do this technique easily with yourself. Don't think: simply watch the phenomenon, watch what is happening.

People go to burn their relatives' bodies, but they never watch. They start talking of other things, or about death; they argue and discuss. They do many things. They talk many things and gossip, but they never watch. It should be made a meditation. No talking should be allowed there, because it is a rare experience to see someone you loved being burned. You are bound to feel that you are also burning there. If you are seeing your mother being burned, or your father, or your wife, or your husband, you are bound to see yourself also there in the flames. That experience will help for this technique. The first thing.The second thing: if you are very much afraid of death you cannot do this technique, because the very fear will protect you. You cannot enter into it. Or, you can just imagine on the surface, but your deep being will not be in it. Then nothing will happen to you. So remember, the second thing: whether you are afraid or not, death is the only certainty.

It makes no difference whether you are afraid or not; it is irrelevant. In life, nothing is certain except death. Everything is uncertain; only death is not accidental. And look at the human mind. We always talk about death as if it is an accident. Whenever someone dies we say his death was untimely. Whenever someone dies we start talking as if it has been an accident. Only death is not an accident -- only death. Everything else is accidental. Death is absolutely certain. You have to die.

And when I say you have to die, it seems in the future, very far away. It is not so -- you have already died. The moment you were born, you died. With birth, death has become a fixed phenomenon. One part of it has already happened -- the birth; now only the second, later part has to happen. So you are already dead, half-dead, because once one is born, one has come into the realm of death, entered into it. Now nothing can change it, now there is no way to change it. You have entered into it. You are half-dead with birth.

Secondly: death is not going to happen in the end; it is already happening. It is a process. Just as life is a process, death is a process. We create the n -- but life and death are just like your two feet, your two legs. Life and death are both one process. You are dying every moment.

Let me put it in this way: whenever you inhale, it is life, and whenever you exhale, it is death. The first thing a child does is to inhale. A child cannot exhale. The first thing is inhalation. He cannot exhale, because there is no air within his chest; he has to inhale. The first act is inhalation. And the old man, while dying, will do the last act, which will be exhalation. Dying, you cannot inhale -- or can you? When you are dying, you cannot inhale. The last act cannot be inhalation; the last act will be exhalation. The first act is inhalation and the last is exhalation. Inhalation is birth and exhalation is death. But every moment you are doing both -- inhaling, exhaling. Inhalation is life, exhalation is death.

You may not have observed, but try to observe it. Whenever you exhale, you are more at peace. Exhale deeply and you will feel a certain peace within. Whenever you inhale, you become intense, you become tense. The very intensity of inhalation creates a tension. And the normal, ordinary emphasis is always on inhalation. If I tell you to take deep breaths, you will always start with inhalation.

Really, we are afraid of exhaling. That's why breathing has become shallow. You never exhale, you go on inhaling. Only the body goes on exhaling, because the body cannot exist with inhalation alone. It needs both: life and death.

Try one experiment. The whole day, whenever you remember, exhale deeply and don't inhale. Allow the body to inhale; you simply exhale deeply. And you will feel a deep peace, because death is peace, death is silence. And if you can pay attention, more attention, to exhalation, you will feel egoless. With inhalation you will feel more egoistic; with exhalation you will feel more egoless. Pay more attention to exhalation. The whole day, whenever you remember, exhale deeply and don't inhale. Allow the body to inhale; you don't do anything.

This emphasis on exhalation will help you very much to do this experiment, because you will be ready to die. A readiness is needed, otherwise the technique will not be of much help. And you can be ready only if you have tasted death in a certain way. Exhale deeply and you will have a taste of it. It is beautiful.

Death is just beautiful, because nothing is like death -- so silent, so relaxing, so calm, so unperturbed. But we are afraid of death. And why are we afraid of death? Why is there so much fear of death? We are afraid of death not because of death -- because we don't know it. How can you be afraid of something you have never encountered? How can you be afraid of something that you don't know? At least you must know it to be afraid of it. So really you are not afraid of death; the fear is something else. You have never really lived -- that creates the fear of death.

The fear comes because you are not living, so you are afraid -- `I have not lived yet, and if death happens then what? Unfulfilled, unlived, I will die.' The fear of death comes only to those who are not really alive. If you are alive, you will welcome death. Then there is no fear. You have known life; now you would like to know death also. But we are so afraid of life itself that we have not know it, we have not entered deep into it. That creates the fear of death.

If you want to enter this technique you must be aware of this deep fear. And this deep fear must be thrown away, purged, only then can you enter the technique. This will help: pay more attention to exhalation. And really, if you can pay all attention to exhalation and forget inhaling.... Don't be afraid that you will die; you will not die -- the body will take inhalation by itself. The body has its own wisdom: if you deeply exhale, the body will take a deep inhalation by itself. You need not interfere. Then a very deep relaxation will spread all over your consciousness. The whole day you will feel relaxed, and an inner silence will be created.

You can deepen this feeling more if you do another experiment. Just for fifteen minutes in the day exhale deeply. Sit in a chair or on the ground, exhale deeply, and while exhaling close the eyes. When the air goes out, you go in. And then allow the body to inhale, and when the air goes in, open the eyes and you go out. It is just the opposite: when the air goes out, you go in; when the air goes in, you go out.

When you exhale, space is created within, because breath is life. When you exhale deeply, you are vacant, life has gone out. In a way you are dead, for a moment you are dead. In that silence of death, enter within. Air is moving out: you close your eyes and move within. The space is there and you can move easily.

Remember, when you are inhaling, to move inwards is very difficult, because there is no space to move. While exhaling you can move within. And when the air goes in, you go out; open the eyes and move out. Create a rhythm between these two. Within fifteen minutes you will feel so deeply relaxed, and you will be ready to do this technique.

Before doing this technique, do this for fifteen minutes so that you are ready -- not only ready, but welcoming, receptive. The fear of death is not there, because now death appears like relaxation, death appears like a deep rest. Death appears not antagonistic to life, but the very source of it, the very energy of it. Life is just like ripples on the face of a lake, and death is the lake itself. When ripples are not there the lake is there. And the lake can exist without the ripples, but the ripples cannot exist without the lake. Life cannot exist without death. Death can exist without life, because it is the source. Then you can do this technique.

FOCUS ON FIRE

RISING THROUGH YOUR FORM

FROM THE TOES UP...

Just lie down. First conceive of yourself as dead; the body is just like a corpse. Lie down, and then bring your attention to the toes. With closed eyes move inwards. Bring your attention to the toes and feel that the fire is rising from there upwards, everything is being burned. As the fire rises, your body is disappearing. Start from the toes and move upwards.

Why start from the toes? It will be easier, because the toes are very far away from your I, from your ego. Your ego exists in the head. You cannot start from the head, it will be very difficult, so start from the far away point. The toes are the most far away point from the ego. Start the fire from there. Feel that the toes are burned, only ashes remain, and then move slowly, burning everything that the fire comes across. Every part -- the legs, the thighs -- will disappear.

And just go on seeing that they have become ashes. The fire is rising upwards, and the parts it has passed are no more there; they have become ashes. Go on upwards, and lastly the head disappears. Everything has become... the dust has fallen unto dust... UNTIL THE BODY BURNS TO ASHES BUT NOT YOU.

You will remain just a watcher on the hill. The body will be there -- dead, burned, ashes -- and you will be the watcher, you will be the witness. This witness has no ego.

This technique is very good to reach the egoless state. Why? -- because so many things are implied in it. It appears simple; it is not so simple. The inner mechanism is very complex. First thing: your memories are part of the body. Memory is matter; that's why it can be recorded. It is recorded in the brain cells. They are material, part of the body. Your brain cells can be operated on, and if certain brain cells are removed, certain memories will disappear from you. Memories are recorded in the brain cells. Memory is matter; it can destroyed. And now scientists say it can be replanted, it can be transplanted again.

Sooner or later we will find ways so that when a person like Albert Einstein dies we will be able to save his brain cells. And those brain cells will be able to be transplanted into a child, and that child will have all the memories of Albert Einstein without going through all those experiences. It is part of the body, memory is part of the body, and if the whole body is burned and has become ashes, you will not have any memory.

Remember, this is the point to understand: if the memory is still there, then the body remains and you have been playing tricks. If really you go deep in the feeling that the body is dead, burning, and the fire has completely destroyed it, you will not have any memory in that moment. In that moment of watching, there will be no mind. Everything will have stopped -- no movement of thought, just watching, just seeing what has happened.

And once you know this, you can remain in this state continuously. Once you have known that you can separate yourself from the body.... This technique is just a method to separate yourself from the body, just to create a gap between you and the body, just for a few moments to be out of the body. If you can do this, then you can remain in the body and you will not be in the body. You can go on living as you were living before, but you will not be the same again.

This technique will take at least three months. Go on doing it. It is not going to happen in one day, but if you go on doing it every day for one hour, within three months, some day suddenly your imagination will have helped and the gap will be created, and you will actually see the body gone to ashes. Then you can watch.

In that watching you will realize a deep phenomenon -- that the ego is a false entity. It was there because you were identified with the body, with the thoughts, with the mind. You are neither -- neither the mind nor the body. You are different from all that surrounds you; you are different from your periphery.

Apparently the technique seems simple, but it can bring you a deep mutation. But first go and meditate on the burning ghat, on the burning ground, so you can see how the body burns, how the body turns to dust again -- so you can imagine easily. Then start from the toes and move very slowly. And before doing this technique, pay more attention to exhalation. Right before entering the technique, for fifteen minutes exhale and close the eyes; allow the body to inhale and open the eyes. For fifteen minutes feel a deep relaxation and then enter into it.

The second technique:

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MEDITATE ON THE MAKE-BELIEVE WORLD AS BURNING TO ASHES, AND BECOME BEING ABOVE HUMAN.

If you can do the first, the second will be very easy. If you can come to imagine that your body is burning, it is not difficult to imagine that the whole world is burning -- because your body is the world, and through your body you are related to the world. Really, only for your body are you related to the world -- the world is extended body. If you can think and imagine that your body is burning, there is no difficulty in imagining it with the whole world. And the sutra says it is a make-believe world -- just because you believe, it is there. The whole world is burning, disappearing.

But if you feel the first is very difficult, you can even start with the second. The second is very easy if you can do the first. And there is no need really to do the second if you have done the first. With your body, everything disappears automatically. But you can do the second directly also, if the first is very difficult.

I said start with the toes because they are very far away from the head, from the ego, but you may not even feel like starting from the toes. Then move still further away: start with the world, and then move nearer and nearer towards yourself. Start with the world and then come nearer. And when the whole world is just burning, it will be easy for you to burn in that whole burning world.

The second is:

MEDITATE ON THE MAKE-BELIEVE WORLD AS BURNING TO ASHES AND BECOME BEING ABOVE HUMAN.

If you can see the whole world burning, you have gone above human, you have become superhuman. You have come to know a superhuman consciousness. You can imagine it, but a training of imagination is needed. jOur imaginations are not very trained. They are very untrained, because there is no schooling for imagination. Intellect is trained, schools and colleges exist and a major part of life is spent in training the intellect. Imagination is not trained. And imagination has a very wonderful dimension of its own. If you can train your imagination, you can do wonders through it.

Start with small things, because it is difficult to jump to bigger things and you may be a failure. For example: this imagination that the whole world is burning -- it cannot go very deep. First, you know it is imagination, and even if in imagination you think that the flames are everywhere, you will feel that the world is not burned, it is there still, because it is only your imagination. You don't know how imagination can become real. You have to feel it first.

Try a simple experiment before you enter this technique. Just close both your hands together, close your eyes, and just imagine that now your hands cannot be opened, they have gone dead, locked, and you cannot do anything to open them. In the beginning you will feel that you are just imagining and you can open them. But for ten minutes go on thinking that you cannot open them, you cannot do anything, your hands cannot be opened. And then after ten minutes try to open them.

Out of ten, four persons will immediately succeed, forty percent of people will immediately succeed: after ten minutes they cannot open their hands -- the imagination has become real. Howsoever they struggle... and the more they struggle to open, the more difficult it will be. You will start perspiring. You are seeing your own hands and you cannot open them. They are locked!

But don't be afraid. Just close your eyes again, and again imagine that now you can open them; only then will you be able to open them. Forty percent will succeed immediately. Those forty percent can move in this technique easily; there is no problem for them.

For the other remaining sixty percent it will be difficult, it will take time. Those who are very sensitive can imagine anything and it will happen. And once they feel that imagination can become real, then they have a feeling and they can move. Then you can do many things with your imagination. Already you are doing it without knowing it. Already you are doing it, but you are not aware.

A certain disease comes to the city -- a French 'flu comes -- and you become a victim of it. You can never think that out of one hundred cases, seventy percent are just because of imagination. Because the 'flu is there you start imagining that now you are going to fall prey to it -- and you will fall. Many diseases are just caught through your imagination, many problems you create because of your imagination. You can also solve them once you know that it is you who are creating them. Train your imagination a little, and then this technique will be very helpful.

The third technique:

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AS, SUBJECTIVELY, LETTERS FLOW INTO WORDS AND WORDS INTO SENTENCES, AND AS, OBJECTIVELY, CIRCLES FLOW INTO WORLDS AND WORLDS INTO PRINCIPLES, FIND AT LAST THESE CONVERGING IN OUR BEING.

That too is an imaginative technique. The ego is always afraid -- afraid of being vulnerable, open; afraid something may enter and destroy it. So the ego creates a citadel around it; you start living in a walled prison. Nothing should be allowed to enter in you. You are afraid -- if something comes in and disturbs, then what to do? -- so it is better not to allow anything to come in. All communication stops. Even with those you love or you think that you love, there is no communication.

Look at a wife and husband talking. They are not talking to each other; there is no communication. Rather, they are avoiding each other through words. They are talking so that the communication can be avoided. In silence they will become vulnerable, in silence they will come closer, because in silence the ego, the wall, will not be there. So the husband and wife, they will never be silent. They will be talking about something or other just to fill in time, and just so as not to be open to each other. We are so afraid of the other.

I have heard about Mulla Nasrudin, that one day as he was just walking out of his house his wife said, `Nasrudin, have you forgotten what day today is?'

Nasrudin knew about it -- it was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary -- so he said, `I know it. I know it well.'

The wife persisted, `Then how are we going to celebrate it?'

So Nasrudin said, `Darling, I don't know.' And then he scratched his head, puzzled, and said, `How would it be if we keep two minutes' silence to celebrate it?'

You cannot remain silent with someone; you begin to feel restlessness. In silence, the other enters you. You are open, your doors are open, your windows are open. You are afraid. You go on talking, you go on creating devices to remain closed.

The ego is an enclosure, it is a prison, and the prison is accepted because we feel so insecure. The prison gives a certain feeling of security: you are protected, guarded. To do this technique, this third technique, the first and most basic thing is: know well that life is insecurity. There is no way to make it secure. Whatsoever you do is not going to help. You can create only a fiction of security -- life remains insecure. It is the very nature of it, because death is involved in it, so how can life be secure?

And think for a moment: if life is really secure, it will be already dead. An absolutely totally secure life cannot be alive, because the very adventure is lost. If you are protected from all dangers you will be dead. In the very being of life there is adventure, danger, insecurity. Death is involved.

I love you. I have entered a dangerous path. Now nothing can be secure, but now I will try to make everything secure. For tomorrow, I will kill everything that is alive, because only then can I feel secure tomorrow also. Love is transformed into marriage -- marriage is a security. Love is insecure -- the next moment everything can change. And you have invested so much, and in the next moment the beloved leaves you, or the friend leaves you, and you are left in a vacuum. Love is insecure. You cannot fix the future, you cannot predict. So live is killed and a secure substitute is found -- that is marriage.

With marriage you can be secure; it is predictable. The wife will be your wife the next day; the husband will be your husband in the future also -- but just because you have secured it. And now there is no danger. It is dead. The relationship is dead now, because only dead things can be permanent; alive things are bound to be changing. Change is the very quality of life, and in change is insecurity.

Those who want to enter deeper realms of life must be ready to be insecure, must be ready to be in danger, must be ready to move into the unknown, and must not try in any way to fix the future. The very effort will kill everything. And remember this also: that insecurity is not only alive, it is beautiful. Security is dull, ugly. Insecurity is alive and beautiful. You can be secure if you close your doors and windows and everything. Neither light enters nor air enters; no one enters. You are secure in a way, but you are not living, you have already entered your tomb.

This technique is possible if you are vulnerable, open, not afraid, because this technique is allowing the whole universe to enter in you.

AS, SUBJECTIVELY,

LETTERS FLOW INTO WORDS AND WORDS INTO SENTENCES,

AND AS, OBJECTIVELY,

CIRCLES FLOW INTO WORLDS AND WORLDS INTO PRINCIPLES,

FIND AT LAST THESE CONVERGING IN OUR BEING.

Everything converging in my being... I am standing under the open sky, and the whole existence, from everywhere, from every nook and corner, is converging in me -- your ego cannot exist. In that openness where the whole existence is converging in you, you cannot exist as an I. You will exist as an open space, but not as a crystallized I.

To do this technique start with a small step. Just sit under a tree. The breeze is blowing and the leaves of the tree are rustling. The wind touches you, it moves around you, it passes. But don't allow it just to pass you; allow it to move within you and pass through you. Just close your eyes, and as it is passing through the tree and there is a rustling of the leaves, feel that you are also like a tree, open, and the wind is blowing through you -- not by your side but right through you.

The rustling of the tree will enter in you, and you will feel that from every pore of your body the air is passing. It is really passing through you. It is not only imagination, it is a fact -- you have forgotten. You are not only breathing through the nose, you are breathing through the whole body -- from every pore of it, from millions of pores. If you are allowed to breathe through your nose, but all the pores of your body are closed, painted, you will die within three hours. You cannot be alive just by breathing through the nose. Every cell of your body is a living organism, and every cell is breathing. The air is really passing through you, but you have lost the contact. So sit under a tree and feel.

In the beginning it will look like imagination, but soon it will turn into a reality. It is a reality -- that the air is passing through you. Then sit under a rising sun, and not only feel that the rays of the sun are touching you, but that they are entering you and passing through you, so you become vulnerable, you begin to feel open.

And this can be done with everything. For example, I am speaking here and you are hearing me. You can hear just through the ears, or you can hear through the whole of the body. You can just try it right here, just with a change of the emphasis: you are not hearing my words through the ears only, you are hearing me through the whole of your body. And when you really hear, and when you really listen, it is the whole body that listens. It is not only a part, it is not a fragmented energy that listens, it is the whole of you. The whole of your body is involved in listening -- then my words are passing through you; from every cell, from every pore, you are drinking them. They are being absorbed from everywhere.

You can do this. Just go and sit in a temple. Many worshippers will be coming and going, and the bell of the temple will be hit again and again. Just listen with the whole of your body. The bell is ringing and the whole temple is agog; every wall of it is reflecting. To reflect this, in order to feel that the sound is converging on you, we created a round shape. So from everywhere the sound is thrown back, it converges upon you from everywhere, and you can listen to it through your whole body -- every pore, every cell, listening, drinking, absorbing it, and it is passing through you. You have become porous; everywhere the door is open. You are not a barrier now to anything -- the air, or the words, or the sound, or the rays, or anything. You are not a barrier, you don't resist anything.

When you come to feel that now you don't resist, you are not in a struggle, suddenly you will become aware that the ego is not there, because the ego exists only when you struggle. It is a resistance. Whenever you say no, the ego comes into existence; whenever you say yes, the ego is not there. So I call a man an ASTIK, a real theist, who has said yes to the whole existence; there is no `no' in him, no resistance. He accepts everything, he allows everything to happen. Even if death comes, he will not close his door. The doors will remain open.

This openness has to be brought, only then can you do this technique, because this technique is saying that the whole existence is falling, converging on you -- no resistance, welcoming, allowing it to converge. You will simply disappear, you will become a space, infinite space, because this infinite universe cannot converge on such a narrow atomic thing as the ego. It can converge only when you have become infinite like it, when you have yourself become an infinite space. But this happens. Slowly you have to become more and more sensitive and you have to become aware of your resistances.

We are very resistant. If I touch you, you can feel that you are resisting the touch, you are creating a barrier, so my warmth cannot enter you, my touch cannot enter you. We don't allow each other to touch. If someone touches you, you become alert and the other says `Excuse me'. There is resistance everywhere. If I look at you, you resist, because the look can enter in you, it can penetrate deep, it can stir you, and then what will you do?

And this is not only with strangers. There is no need even with strangers, because no one is a stranger or everyone is a stranger. Just by living under one roof, how can the strangeness be destroyed? Do you know your father who has given you birth? He is a stranger. Do you know your mother? She remains a stranger. So either everyone is a stranger, nor no one is a stranger. But we are afraid and create barriers everywhere. These barriers make us insensitive; then nothing can enter into us.

People come to me and they say, `No one loves. No one loves me.' And I touch that man and I feel he is afraid even of touch. There is a subtle withdrawal. I take his hand in my hand and he has withdrawn. He is not there in the hand; only a dead thing is in my hand -- he has withdrawn. And he says, `No one loves me.' How can anyone love you? And even if the whole world loves, you will not feel it, because you are closed. Love cannot enter you; there is no gate, no door. And you are suffering in your own prison.

If the ego is there, you are closed -- for love, for meditation, for God. So first try to be more sensitive, more vulnerable, open, allowing things to happen to you. Only then can the divine happen, because that is the last happening. If you cannot allow ordinary things to happen to you, how can you allow the ultimate? Because when the ultimate happens to you, you will be no more. You will be simply no more.

Kabir has said, `When I was seeking you, you were not there. And now, when you are there, where is that seeker Kabir? He is no more. So what type of meeting is this?' Kabir wonders, `What type of meeting is this? When I was there, the divine was not. Now the divine is there, but I am not. So what type of meeting is this?'

But really this is the only meeting, because two cannot meet. Ordinarily we think two are needed to meet -- how will the meeting be there if there is only one? So the ordinary logic says that for a meeting at least two are needed, the other is needed. But for a real meeting, for a meeting which we call love, for a meeting which we call prayer, for a meeting which we call samadhi, ecstasy, one is needed. When the seeker is there, the sought is not; and when the sought has come, the seeker has disappeared.

Why is this so? -- because the ego is the barrier. When you feel you are, you are so much that nothing can enter in you. You are filled with your own self. When you are not, then everything can pass through you. You have become so vast that even the divine can pass through you. The whole existence is now ready to pass through you, because you are ready.

So the whole art of religion is how not to be, how to dissolve, how to surrender, how to become an open space.