THINKING NO THING, WILL LIMITED-SELF UNLIMIT.

I have heard a story about an old doctor. One day his assistant phoned him because he was in very great difficulty -- his patient was choking himself to death. A billiard ball was stuck in his throat, and the assistant was at a loss for what to do. So he asked the old doctor, `What am I supposed to do now?' The old doctor said, `Tickle the patient with a feather.'

After a few minutes the assistant phoned again, very happy and jubilant, and said, `Your treatment proved wonderful -- the patient started laughing and he spat the ball out. But tell me from where you learned this remarkable technique.'

The old doctor said, `I just made it up. This has always been my motto: When you don't know what to do, do something.

But this will not do as far as meditation is concerned. If you don't know what to do, don't do anything, because mind is very intricate, complex, delicate. If you don't know what to do, it is better not to do anything, because whatsoever you do without knowing, is going to create more complexities than it can solve. It may even prove fatal, it may even prove suicidal.

If you don't know anything about the mind.... And really, you don't know anything about it. Mind is just a word. You don't know the complexity of it. Mind is the most complex thing in existence; there is nothing comparable to it. And it is the most delicate -- you can destroy it, you can do something which cannot then be undone. These techniques are based on a very deep knowledge, on a very deep encounter with the human mind. Each technique is based on long experimentation.

So remember this, don't do anything on your own, and don't mix two techniques, because their functioning is different, their ways are different, their bases are different. They lead to the same end, but as means they are totally different. Sometimes they may even be diametrically opposite. So don't mix two techniques. Really, don't mix anything -- use the technique as it is given.

Don't change it, don't improve it, because you cannot improve it, and any change you bring to it will be fatal. And before you start doing a technique, be fully alert that you have understood it. If you feel confused and you don't know really what the technique is, it is better not to do it, because each technique is to bring about a revolution in you.

These techniques are not evolutionary. By evolution I mean that if you don't do anything and just go on living, in millions of years the meditation will happen automatically to you, in millions of lives you will evolve. In the natural course of time, you will come to the point to which a Buddha comes through a revolution. These techniques are revolutionary. Really, they are shortcuts; they are not natural. Nature will lead you to Buddhahood, to enlightenment -- you will come to it one day -- but then it is up to nature; you cannot do anything about it except just go on living in misery. It will take a very long time; really, millions of years and lives.

Religion is revolutionary. It gives you a technique which can shorten the lengthy process, and with which you can take a jump -- a jump which will avoid millions of lives. In a single moment you can travel millions of years. So it is dangerous, and unless you understand it rightly, don't do it. Don't mix anything on your own. Don't change.

First try to understand the technique absolutely rightly. When you have understood it, then try it. And don't use this old doctor's motto that when you don't know what to do, do something. No, don't do anything. Non-doing will be more beneficial to you than any doing. This is so because the mind is so delicate that if you do something wrongly it is very difficult to undo it -- very difficult to undo it. It is very easy to do something wrong, but very difficult to undo it. Remember this.

The first technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION


TOSS ATTACHMENT FOR BODY ASIDE, REALIZING I AM EVERYWHERE. ONE WHO IS EVERYWHERE IS JOYOUS.

TOSS ATTACHMENT FOR BODY ASIDE, REALIZING I AM EVERYWHERE. ONE WHO IS EVERYWHERE IS JOYOUS. Many points have to be understood. First: TOSS ATTACHMENT FOR BODY ASIDE. There is a deep attachment to the body -- bound to be, it is natural. You have been living in the body for many, many lives, from the very beginning. Bodies have changed, but you were always with a body, you were always embodied.

There have been certain moments and times when you were not embodied, but then you were not conscious. When you die from one body, you die in unconsciousness and then you remain unconscious. Then you are born again in a new body, but then too you are unconscious. The gap between one death and another birth is unconscious, so you don't know how you will feel when not embodied. You don't know who you are when you are not in a body. You know only one phenomenon, and that is of embodiment; you have always known yourself in the body.

This has been so long, so continuous, that you have forgotten that you are different from it. This is a forgetfulness -- natural, bound to happen in the circumstances -- hence the attachment. You feel you are the body -- this is the attachment. You feel that you are not anything other than the body, not anything more than the body. You may not agree with me at this point, because many times you think that you are not the body, you are the soul, the self. But this is not your knowing; this is simply what you have heard, what you have read, and what you have believed without knowing.

So the first thing to be done is that you have to realize the fact that really this is your knowing -- that you are the body. Don't deceive yourself, because deception will not help. If you think that you already know that you are not the body, then you cannot toss aside the attachment, because really for you there is no attachment, you already know. Then many difficulties arise which cannot be solved. A difficulty has to be solved at the beginning. Once you lose the beginning, you can never solve it; you have to come back again to the beginning. So remember well, and realize well that you don't know yourself as anything other than the body. This is the first basic realization.

This realization is not there. Your mind is befogged by whatsoever you have heard; your mind is conditioned by the knowledge of others -- it is borrowed, it is not real. Not that it is false -- those who have said it, they have known it -- but for you it is false unless it becomes your own experience. So whenever I say something is false, I mean it is not your experience. It may be true for someone else, but it is not true for you. And truth is individual in this sense -- that truth is truth only when experienced; not experienced, it is untrue. There are no universal truths. Every truth has to be individual before it becomes true.

You know, you have heard; this is part of your knowledge, part of an inheritance -- that you are not the body -- but it is not real for you. First toss aside this unreal knowledge. Face the fact that you know yourself only as the body. That will create a great tension in you -- it was just to hide that tension that you gathered this knowledge. You go on believing that you are not the body and you go on living as the body, so you are divided, and your whole being becomes non-authentic, pseudo.

Really this is a paranoid condition. You live as the body and you think and talk as the soul -- then there is a struggle and a conflict and then you are constantly in an inner turmoil, a deep unease which cannot be bridged. So first encounter the fact you don't know anything about the soul, the self -- all that you know is about the body.

This will release a very uneasy condition in you. All that is hidden will come up to the surface. In realizing this fact that you are the body, you will literally start perspiring. In realizing this fact that you are the body, you will feel very uneasy, strange, but that feeling has to be gone through; only then can you know what attachment to the body means.

Teachers go on saying that you should not be attached to your body, but the basic thing -- what the attachment to the body is -- is unknown to you. Attachment to the body is a deep identification with the body, but first you have to realize what this identification is. So put aside all your knowledge that has given you an illusory sense that you are the soul. Realize that you know only one thing, and that is the body. How does this create and how does this release hidden turmoil and a hidden hell within you?

The moment you realize you are the body, for the first time you realize the attachment. For the first time you grip the fact in your consciousness that this body which is born, and this body which is gong to die, is you. For the first time you realize the fact that these bones, this bones -- this is you. For the first time you realize the fact that this sex, this anger -- this is you. So all the false images fall. You become real.

The reality is painful, very painful -- that's why we go on hiding it. It is a deep trick. You go on thinking about yourself as the self, and everything that you don't like, you throw on the body. So you say sex belongs to the body, love belongs to you. Then you say greed and anger, they belong to the body; compassion belongs to you. Compassion belongs to the self, and cruelty belongs to the body. Forgiveness belongs to the self, and anger belongs to the body. So whatsoever you feel is wrong, ugly, you throw to the body, and whatsoever you feel is beautiful, you go on being identified with. You create a division.

This division will not allow you to know what attachment is, and unless you know what attachment is and unless you suffer the misery of it and the hell of it, you cannot put it aside. How can you put it aside? You can put something aside only when it proves a disease, when it proves a heavy burden, when it proves a hell; only then can you put it aside.

Your attachment has not proved a hell yet. Whatsoever Buddha says and Mahavir says is irrelevant. They may go on saying that attachment is hell, but this is not your feeling. That's why you again and again ask how to be detached, how to be not attached, how to go beyond attachment. You go on asking this `how' only because you don't know what attachment is. If you know what attachment is, you will simply jump out of it. You will not ask `how'.

If your house is on fire you will not ask anyone, you will not go seeking a master to ask how to come out of it. If the house is on fire you will simply get out of it. You will not lose a single moment. You will not search for the teacher, you will not consult the scriptures. And you will not try to choose in what ways one has to come out, what means have to be adopted, and which door is the right door. These things are irrelevant when the house is on fire. When you know what attachment is, the house is on fire. You can put it aside.

To enter in this technique, first you have to throw the false knowledge of the self so that attachment with the body is revealed in its totality. It is going to be very difficult; it is going to be a deep anxiety and anguish to face it. It is not going to be easy, it is arduous, but once you face it, you can put it aside. And there is no need to ask how. It is absolutely a fire, a hell. You can jump out of it.

This sutra says:

TOSS ATTACHMENT FOR BODY ASIDE,

REALIZING I AM EVERYWHERE.

And the moment you toss aside the attachment, you will realize you are everywhere. Because of this attachment you feel you are limited by the body. It is not the body which is limiting you; it is your attachment to it. It is not the body which is making a barrier between you and the reality; it is your attachment to it. Once you know what the attachment is not there, there is no body to you. Rather, the whole existence becomes your body; your body becomes a part of the total existence. Then it is not separate.

Really, your body is nothing but existence comes to you, existence reached to you. It is the nearest existence to you, that's all -- and then it goes on spreading. Your body is just the nearest corner of it, and then the whole existence is there -- it goes on spreading. Once your attachment is not there, there is no body to you; or, the whole existence has become your body. You are everywhere.

In the body you are somewhere; without the body you are everywhere. In the body you are confined to a particular space; without the body you have no confinement. That's why those who have known, they say the body is the imprisonment. Not that the body is the imprisonment; really, the attachment to it is the imprisonment. Once your eyes are not focused on the body, you are everywhere.

This looks absurd. To the mind who is in the body, this looks absurd, a madness -- how can one be everywhere? To a Buddha, whatsoever we say -- that `I am here' -- really looks like madness. How can you be somewhere? Consciousness is not a space concept. That's why if you close your eyes and try to find out where in your body you are, you will be at a loss. You cannot find out where you are.

There have been many religions and many sects which have preached that you are in the navel. Some say that you are in the heart, some say that you are in the head, some say that you are in this center and that center, but Shiva says you are nowhere. That's why if you close your eyes and try to find out where you are, you cannot say. You are, but there is no `where' to you. Simply you are.

In deep sleep you are not aware of the body. YOu are. In the morning you will say that the sleep was very deep, very blissful. You were aware of a deep bliss running throughout, but you were not aware of the body. In deep sleep where are you? When you die, where do you go? Continuously people ask, `When someone dies, where does he go?' But the question is absurd, foolish. It is related to our embodied consciousness -- because we think that we are somewhere, so then when we die, where do we go? -- nowhere.

When you die, you are not somewhere, that's all. You are not confined to a space, that's all. But if you have a desire to be confined, you will be confined again. Your desire leads you to new confinements. But when you are not in the body, you are nowhere, or, everywhere -- this depends on which word appeals to you.

If you ask Buddha, he will say you are nowhere. That's why he chooses the word `nirvana'. Nirvana means you are nowhere. Just like a flame which has gone out -- how can you say where the flame is then? He will say it is nowhere. The flame has simply ceased to be. Buddha uses a negative term -- nowhere. That's what nirvana means. When you are not attached to the body you are in nirvana, you are nowhere.

Shiva chooses a positive term -- he says everywhere -- but both the terms mean the same. If you are everywhere, you cannot be somewhere. If you are everywhere, it is saying almost the same thing as saying that you are nowhere.

But in the body we are attached, and we feel that we are confined. This confinement is a mental act; it is your own doing. And you can confine yourself to anything. You have a valuable diamond. Your being can be confined to it, and if the diamond is stolen you may commit suicide or you may go mad. What has happened? There are so many persons without a diamond: no one is committing suicide, no one is feeling any difficulty without a diamond, but what has happened to you?

Once you were also without a diamond; there was no problem. Now you are again without a diamond, but there is a problem. How is this problem created? It is your own doing. Now you are attached, confined. The diamond has become your body. Now you cannot live without it; it is impossible to live without it.

Wherever you get attached, it becomes a new imprisonment. And whatsoever we are doing in life is this: we go on creating more and more imprisonments, bigger and bigger jails to live in. Then we go on decorating those jails so that they look like home, and then we forget completely that they are jails.

This sutra says that if you toss aside the attachment with the body, realization happens that I AM EVERYWHERE. You have an oceanic feeling, your consciousness exists without any location. Your consciousness exists without being tethered anywhere. You become just like a sky, enveloping all; everything is in you. Your consciousness has expanded to the infinite possibility. And then the sutra says:

ONE WHO IS EVERYWHERE IS JOYOUS.

Confined to a place you will be in misery, because you are always bigger than where you are confined. This is the misery -- as if you are forcing yourself into a small bowl; the ocean is being forced into a small pot. The misery is bound to be there. This is the misery, and whenever this misery has been felt, the search for enlightenment arises, the search for the Brahma. Brahma means the infinite one. The search for moksha means the search for freedom. In a limited body you cannot be free; somewhere you will be a slave. Nowhere or everywhere you can be free.

Look at the human mind: whatsoever the direction, it is always for freedom, searching for freedom. It may be political, it may be economic, it may be psychological, it may be religious -- whatsoever the direction, but the human mind is always groping for freedom. Freedom seems to be the deepest need. Wherever human mind finds any barrier, any slavery, any limitation, it fights against t. The whole human history is a fight for freedom.

Dimensions may be different. A Marx, a Lenin, they are fighting for economic freedom. A Gandhi, a Lincoln, they are fighting for political freedom. And there are thousands and thousands of slaveries, and the fight goes on. But one thing is certain -- that somewhere, deep down, man is searching continuously for more and more freedom.

Shiva says, and all the religions say, that you can become politically free, but the struggle will not cease. Only one type of slavery will be no more, but there are other types of slaveries there, and when you are politically free then you will become aware of other slaveries. Economic slavery can cease, but then you will become aware of other slaveries -- sexual, psychological. This struggle cannot cease unless you begin to feel and know that you are everywhere. The moment you feel you are everywhere, freedom is attained.

This freedom is not political, this freedom is not economical, not sociological. This freedom is existential. This freedom is total. That's why we have called it moksha, total freedom. And then only can you be joyous. Joy or bliss is possible only when you are totally free.

Really, to be totally free means joy. The joy is not a consequence, it is the very happening. When you are totally free you are joyous, you are blissful. This bliss is not happening as an effect. Freedom is bliss, slavery is misery. The moment you feel limited you are miserable; wherever you feel limited you feel miserable. When you feel unlimited, misery disappears. So misery exists in barriers, and bliss exists in a no-barrier land, in a no-barrier existence.

Whenever you feel this freedom, joy happens to you. Even now, whenever you feel a certain freedom, even if it is not total, joy comes to you. You fall in love with somebody: a certain joy, a certain bliss happens to you. Why does it happen? Really, whenever you are in love with somebody, you have tossed aside your own attachment to the body. In a deep sense, now the other's body has also become your body. You are not confined to your own body now; somebody else's body has also become your body, it has also become your home, it has also become your abode. You feel a freedom Now you can move into the other and the other can move into you. In a limited way a barrier has fallen You are more than before.

When you love someone you are more than you ever were; your being has increased, expanded. Your consciousness is not limited like it was before; it has reached a new realm. You feel a certain freedom in love. It is not total, and sooner or later you will feel again confined. You feel extended, but still finite. So those who really love, are sooner or later bound to fall into prayer.

Prayer means a greater love. Prayer means a love with the whole existence. You now know the secret. You know a key, a secret key -- that you loved a person, and the moment you loved, the doors opened and the barriers dissolved, and at least for one person more your being was expanded, increased. Now you know the secret key. If you can fall in love with the whole existence, you will not be the body.

In deep love you become bodiless. When you are in love with someone you don't feel yourself as a body. When you are not loved, when you are not in love, you feel yourself more as a body, you become more aware of the body. The body becomes a burden; you have to carry it. When you are loved, the body has lost weight. When you are loved and you are in love, you don't feel gravitation has any effect on you. You can dance, you can fly really. In a deeper way the body is no more -- but this is in a limited way. The same can happen when you are in love with the total existence.

In love, joy comes to you. It is not pleasure. Remember, joy is not pleasure. Pleasure comes to you through the senses; joy come to you through being non-sensuous. Pleasures comes to you through the body; joy comes to you when you are not the body. When for a moment the body has disappeared and you are simply consciousness, then joy comes to you. When you are the body, pleasure can happen to you. It is always through the body. Pain is possible, pleasure is possible through the body. Joy is possible only when you are not the body.

It happens ordinarily also, accidentally also. You are listening to music and suddenly gravitation is lost. You are so absorbed in it, you have forgotten your body. You are filled with music and you have become one with music. There is not a listener to it: the listener and the listened have become one. Only music exists; you are no more. You have expanded. Now you are flowing with musical notes, now there is no limit to you. The notes are dissolving into silence, and you are also dissolving into silence with them. The body is forgotten.

Whenever the body is forgotten, it is tossed aside unknowingly, unconsciously, and joy happens to you. Through Tantra and Yoga you can do it methodologically. Then it is not an accident; then you are the master of it. Then it is not happening to you; then you have the key in your hands and you can open the door whenever you want. Or, you can open the door forever and throw away the key; no need to close the door again.

Joy happens in ordinary life also, but you don't know how it happens. The happening is always when you are not the body -- remember this. So whenever you again feel any moment of joy, become aware of whether you are the body in that moment or not. You will not be. Whenever joy is, the body is not. Not that the body disappears -- the body remains, but you are not attached to it. You are not attached to it, you are not tethered to it. You have jumped out.

You may have jumped out because of music, you may have jumped out because of a beautiful sunrise, you may have jumped out because a child was laughing, you may have jumped out because you were in love. Whatsoever the cause, but you have jumped out for a moment -- out of the body. The body is there, but tossed aside; you are not attached to it. You have taken a flight.

Through this technique, you know that one who is everywhere cannot be miserable; he is joyous, he is joy. So the more you become confined, the more miserable. Expand, push your boundaries away, and whenever you can, leave the body aside. You look in the sky and clouds are floating: move with the clouds, leave the body here on the earth. And the moon is there: move with the moon. Whenever you can forget the body, don't miss the opportunity -- go on a journey. And then you will become accustomed to what it means to be out of the body.

And this is only a question of attention. Attachment is a question of attention. If you pay attention to the body, you are attached. If the attention has moved away, you are not attached.

Look, for example: you are playing on the sports-grounds; you are playing hockey or volley-ball or something else. When you are deep in play, your attention is not on the body. Someone has hit your feet and the blood is flowing -- you are not aware. The pain is there, but you are not there. The blood is flowing but you are out of the body. Your consciousness, your attention, may be flying with the ball, may be running with the ball. Your attention is somewhere else. The game finishes: suddenly you come back to the body, and the blood is there and the pain. And you wonder how it happened -- when it happened and how it happened and how you were not aware of it.

To be in the body, your attention is needed to be there. So remember it -- wherever your attention is, you are there. If your attention is in the clouds, you are there. If your attention is in the flower, you are there. If your attention is in money, you are there. Your attention is your being. And if your attention is nowhere, you are everywhere.

So the whole process of meditation is to be in such a state of consciousness where your attention is nowhere, there is no object to it. When there is no object to it, there is no body to you. Your attention creates the body. Your attention is your body. And when attention is nowhere, you are everywhere -- joy happens to you. It is not good to say that it happens to you -- you are it. It cannot leave you now; it is your very being. Freedom is joy, that's why so much hankering after freedom.

The second technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

THINKING NO THING -- WILL LIMITED-SELF UNLIMIT.

He wanted to beat him, so he said to the mule, `Behave rightly, because I am a Quaker -- I cannot beat you, I cannot scold you, I cannot be violent -- but remember, mule, that I can sell you to someone who is not a Christian!'

The Christian has his own world, and the non-Christian is opposite. The Christian cannot conceive that the non-Christian can reach the kingdom of God. A Hindu cannot conceive, a Jain cannot conceive, that others can enter into that realm of bliss -- impossible. Thought creates a limitation, a barrier, a boundary, and all those who are not for are taken to be against. One who is not in agreement with me is against me.

How can you be everywhere? You can be with the Christian; you cannot be with the non-Christian. You can be with the Hindu, but you cannot be with the non-Hindu, with the Mohammedan. Thought is bound to be somewhere against -- against someone or something. It cannot be total. Remember: thought cannot be total; only no-thought can be total.

Secondly: thought is always from the mind, it is always a by-product of the mind. It is your attitude, your speculation, your prejudice; it is your reaction, your formulation, your concept, your philosophy, but it is not existence itself. It is something about the existence; it is not existence itself.

A flower is there. You can say something about it; that is a thought. You can say it is beautiful, you can say it is ugly, you can say it is sacred, but whatsoever you say about the flower is not the flower. The flower exists without your thoughts, and whenever you are thinking about the flower, you are creating a barrier between you and the flower.

The flower doesn't need your thoughts. It exists. Drop your thoughts, and then you can drop yourself into the flower. Whatsoever you say about a rose is meaningless, howsoever meaningful it appears, it is meaningless. What you say is not needed. It is not giving any existence to the flower. It is creating a film between you and the flower; it is creating a limitation. So whenever there is thought, you are debarred; the door is closed to existence.

This sutra says:

THINKING NO THING

WILL LIMITED-SELF UNLIMIT.

If you don't think, if you simply are, fully alert, aware, but without any clouds of thought, you are unlimited. The body is not the only body -- a deeper body is the mind. Body consists of matter; mind also consists of matter -- subtle, more refined. Body is the outer layer, mind is the inner layer. And it is easy to be detached from the body. It is more difficult to be detached from the mind, because with the mind you feel you are more yourself.

If someone says that your body looks ill, you don't feel offended. You are not so attached; it is a little away from you. But if someone says your mind seems to be pathological, ill, you feel offended. He has insulted you. With the mind you are nearer. If someone says something about your body you can tolerate it. If someone says something about your mind, it is impossible to tolerate it, because he has hit deeper.

The mind is the inner layer of the body. Mind and body are not two: the outer layer of your body is the body and the inner layer is the mind. Just as if you have a house: you can see the house from the outside, and you can see the house from the inside. From the outside the outer layer of the walls will be seen; from the inside the inner layer. The mind is your inner layer. It is nearer to you, but it is still a body.

In death your outer body drops, but you carry the inner, subtle layer with you. You are so attached to it that even death cannot separate you from your mind. Mind continues. That's why your past births can be known, because you are still carrying all the minds that you ever had. They are there. If you were a dog once, the dog mind is still with you. If you were a tree once, the tree mind is still with you. If you once were a woman or a man, you carry those minds. All the minds are carried by you. You are so attached to them that you never lose the grip.

In death the outer dissolves, but the inner is carried. It is a very subtle material thing. Really, just vibrations of energy, thought vibrations. You carry them, and according to your thought pattern that you carry, you enter a new body. According to the thought pattern, the desire pattern, the mind, you again create a new body for yourself. The blue-print is in the mind, and the outer layer is again accumulated.

The first sutra is to put aside the body. The second sutra is to put aside the mind, the inner body. Even death cannot separate you -- only meditation can separate. That's why meditation is a greater death, it is a deeper surgery -- deeper than death itself. That's why so much fear. People go on talking about meditation but they will never do it. They will talk, they can write about it, they can preach about it, but they will never do it. A deep fear exists about meditation, and the fear is of death.

Those who do meditation, they come one day or another to the point where they are scared, thrown back. They come to me and they say, `Now we cannot enter more. It is impossible.' A point comes where one feels that one is dying. And that point is of a deeper death than any death, because now the innermost is being separated; the most inner identity is being shattered. One feels one is dying; one feels now one is moving into non-existence. A deep abyss opens, infinite emptiness opens. One is scared, runs back to cling to the body so that one is not thrown, because the earth beneath is moving, is being removed. A valley is opening, a nothingness.

So people, even if they try, they always try superficially; they play with meditation. They are unconsciously aware that if they move deep they will be no more. And that's right, the fear is true -- you will not be yourself again. Once you have known that abyss, that shoonya, the void, you will not be the same again.

You come back, but you are resurrected, a new man. The old has disappeared. You cannot find even a trace of it, of where it has gone. The old was the identity with the mind. Now you cannot be identified with the mind. Now you can use the mind, you can use the body, but they have become instruments; you are above them. Whatsoever you do, you can do, but you are not one with them. This gives freedom. But this can happen only when THINKING NO THING.

Hmm -- this is very paradoxical -- THINKING NO THING. You can think about things. How can you think about no thing? What does this `no thing' mean? And how can you think about it? Whenever you think about something it becomes a thing, it becomes an object, it becomes a thought, and thoughts are things. How can you think no thing? You cannot, but in the very effort -- the effort to think no thing -- thinking will be lost, thinking will be dissolved.

You may have heard about Zen koans. Zen masters give an absurd puzzle to the seeker to think about -- and it is something which cannot be thought. It is given knowingly just to stop thinking. For example, they say to the seeker: `Go and find out what your original face is: the face you had when you were not born. Don't think about this face which you have got; think of the face you had before birth.'

How can you think about it? There was no face before birth; the face comes with the birth. The face is part of the body. You have no face; only the body has a face. Close your eyes and you have no face. You know about your face through the mirror. You have not seen it yourself, and you cannot see it, so how can one think about the original face?> But one can try; the very effort will help.

The seeker will try and try -- and it is impossible. He will come to the master again and again, asking, `Is this the original face?' And before he says it to the master, the master says, `It is wrong. Whatsoever you bring is going to be wrong.'

For months together the seeker comes again and again. He finds something, imagines something, and he sees the face -- `The original face is like this?' And the master says, `No.' And every time this `No, no', and by and by he becomes more and more puzzled. He cannot think. He tries and tries and tries and fails -- that failure is the basic thing. One day he comes to a total failure. All thinking stops in that total failure and he comes to realize that the original face cannot be thought. Thinking stops.

And whenever this last time happens to a seeker, when he comes to the master, the master says, `Now there is no need. I see the original face.' The eyes have become vacant. The seeker has come not to say something, but just to be near the master. He has not found any answer. There was none. He has come for the first time without the answer. There is no answer to it. He comes silently.

Every time he had come he had some answer. The mind was there, the thought was there -- he was limited by that thought. He had found or imagined some face -- he was limited by that face. Now he has become original; now there is no limit. Now he has got no face, no idea, no thought. He has come without any mind. This is the state of no-mind.

In this state of no-mind, the limited-self unlimits. The limits are dissolved. Suddenly you are everywhere, suddenly you are everyone. Suddenly you are in the tree and in the stone and in the sky and in the friend and in the enemy -- suddenly you are everywhere. The whole existence has become just a mirror -- you are everywhere, mirrored. This state is the state of bliss. Now nothing can disturb you, because nothing exists except you. Now nothing can destroy you; nothing exists except you. Now there is no death, because even in death you are. Now nothing is opposed to you. Alone, you exist.

This aloneness Mahavir has called KAIVALYA, total aloneness. Why alone? -- because everything is involved, absorbed, has become you. You can express this state in two ways. You can say, `Only I am. Aham Brahmasmi -- I am the God, the divine, the total. Everything has come unto me; all the rivers have dissolved into my ocean. Alone I exist. Nothing else exists.' Sufi mystics say this, and Mohammedans could never understand why Sufis say such things. A Sufi says, `There is no God. Alone I exist.' Or, `I am the God.' This is a positive way of saying that now no separation is there. Buddha uses a negative way. He says, `I am nor more. Nothing exists.'

Both are true, because when everything is included in me, there is no sense in calling myself. The I is always opposed to the YOU; I is always opposed to THOU. In relation to YOU it is meaningful. When there is no YOU, I becomes meaningless. So Buddha says there is no I, nothing exists. Either everything has become you, or you have become a non-being and you dissolve into everything.

Both the expressions are true. Of course, no expression can be totally true, that's why the opposite expression is always also true. Every expression is partial, part; that's why the opposite expression is also true -- that too is part of it. Remember this. Whatsoever you express may be true and the opposite also may be true -- the very opposite. Really, it is bound to be true, because every expression is only a part.

And there are two types of expression: you can choose the positive or you can choose the negative. If you choose the positive, the negative seems to be untrue. It is not; it is complementary. It is not really opposed to it. So whether you say Brahma -- the total -- or you say Nirvana -- the nothingness -- it is the same. Both connote the same experience, and the experience is this -- thinking no thing, you come to know it.

Some basic things have to be understood about this technique. One: thinking, you are separated from existence. Thinking is not a relation, it is not a bridge, it is not a communication -- it is a barrier. Non-thinking you are related, bridged; you are in communion. When you are talking to someone, you are not related. The very talk becomes a barrier. The more you talk, the further away you move. If you are with someone in silence, you are related. If the silence is really deep and there are no thoughts in your mind and both the minds are totally silent, you are one.

Two zeros cannot be two. Two zeros become one. If you add two zeros they don't become two, they become a bigger zero -- one. And, really, a zero cannot be bigger -- more big, or less big. A zero is simply a zero. You cannot add something to it, you cannot deduct something from it. A zero is whole. When ever you are silent with someone, you are one. When you are silent with existence, you are one with it.

This technique says be silent with existence and then you will know what God is. There is only one dialogue with existence and that is in silence. If you talk with existence, you miss. Then you are enveloped in your own thoughts.

Try this as an experiment. Try it with anything as an experiment -- even with a rock. Be silent with it -- take it in your hand and be silent -- and there will be a communion. You will move deep into the rock and the rock will move deep into you. Your secrets will be revealed to the rock and the rock will reveal its secrets to you. But you cannot use language with it. The rock doesn't know any language. Because you use language, you cannot be related to it.

And man has lost silence completely. When you are not doing anything, then too you are not silent; the mind goes on doing something or other. Because of this constant inner talk, this continuous inner chattering, you are not related to anything. Not even to your beloved ones are you related, because this chattering goes on.

You may be sitting with your wife: you are chattering in your own mind; she is chattering in her own mind. Both are chattering. They are far away from each other, poles away. It is as if one is on one star, and the other on another star, and there is infinite space between them. Then they feel that the intimacy is not there, and then they blame each other -- `You don't love me.'

This is not the question really. Love is not possible. Love is a flower of silence. It flowers only in silence, because it flowers in communion. If you cannot be without thoughts, you cannot be in love. And then to be in prayer is impossible -- but even if we do prayer we chatter. To us, prayer is just chattering with God.

We have become so conditioned to chattering that even if we go to the church or to the temple we continue chattering there also. We chatter with God, we talk with God. This is absolute nonsense. God, existence, cannot understand your language. Existence understands only one language -- that is of silence. And silence is neither Sanskrit nor Arabic nor English nor Hindi. Silence is universal; it doesn't belong to anyone.

There are at least four thousand languages on earth, and everyone is enclosed in his own language. If you don't know his language you cannot be related to him. You cannot be related. If I don't understand your language and you don't understand my language, we cannot be related. We are strangers. We cannot penetrate each other, we cannot understand, we cannot love. This is happening only because we don't know a basic universal language -- that is silence.

Really only through silence is one related. And if you know the language if silence then you can be related to anything, because rocks are silent, trees are silent, the sky is silent -- it is existential. It is not only human, it is existential. Everything knows what silence is; everything exists in silence.

If a rock is there in your hand, the rock is not chattering within itself and you are chattering -- that's why you cannot be related to the rock. And the rock is open, vulnerable, inviting. The rock will welcome you, but you are chattering and the rock cannot understand the chattering -- that becomes the barrier. So even with human beings you cannot be in a deep relationship; there can be no intimacy. Language, words, destroy everything.

Meditation means silence: not thinking about anything. Not thinking at all, just being -- open, ready, eager to meet, welcoming, receptive, loving, but not thinking at all. Then infinite love will happen to you, and you will never say that no one loves you. You will never say it, you will never feel it. Now, whatsoever you do, you will say this and you will feel this. You may not even say it. You may pretend that someone loves you, but deep down you know.

Even lovers go on asking each other, `Do you love me?' In so many ways they go on enquiring continuously. Everyone is afraid, uncertain, insecure. In many ways they try to find out whether really the lover loves them. And they can never be certain, because the lover can say, `Yes, I love you,' but it will not give any guarantee. How can you be at ease? How can you know whether he is deceiving you or not? He can argue, he can convince you. He can convince you intellectually, but the heart will not be convinced. So lovers are always in agony. They cannot be convinced of the fact that the other loves. How can you be convinced?

Really there is no way to convince through language. And you are asking through language, and while the lover is there you are chattering in the mind, questioning, arguing. You will never be convinced, and you will always feel that you have not been loved, and this becomes the deepest misery. And this is happening not because someone is not loving you. This is happening because you are closed in a wall. You are closed within your thoughts; nothing can penetrate. The thoughts cannot be penetrated unless you drop the. If you drop them the whole existence penetrates you.

This sutra says:

THINKING NO THING

WILL LIMITED-SELF UNLIMIT

You will become unlimited. You will become whole. You will become universal. You will be everywhere. And then you are joy. Now you are nothing but misery. Those who are cunning, they go on deceiving themselves that they are not miserable, or they go on hoping that something will change, something will happen, and they will achieve at the end of life -- but you are miserable.

You can create faces, deceptions, false faces; you can go on smiling continuously, but deep down you know you are in misery. That is natural. Confined in thoughts you will be in misery. Unconfined, beyond thoughts -- alert, conscious, aware, but unclouded by thoughts -- you will be joy, you will be bliss.