I AM EXISTING. THIS IS MINE. THIS IS THIS. OH BELOVED, EVEN IN SUCH KNOW ILLIMITABLY.

Man is Janus-Faced -- animal and divine both. Animal belongs to his past, divine belongs to his future, and this creates the difficulty. The past has passed, it is no more; just a shadow of it lingers on. And the future is still the future, it has not yet come; it just a dream, just a possibility. And between these two exists man -- the shadow of the past and the dream of the future. He is neither and he is both.

He is both because the past is his -- he was animal. He is both because the future is his -- he can be divine. And he is not both, because the past is no more and the future is yet to be.

Man exists as a tension between these two: that which was and that which can be. This creates a conflict, a constant struggle to realize, to be something. In a sense, man is not. Man is just a step from the animal to the divine -- and a step is nowhere. It was somewhere and it will be somewhere, but right now it is nowhere, just hanging in the air.

So whatsoever man is doing -- whatsoever I say -- he is never satisfied in it, never content, because two diametrically opposite existences meet in him. If the animal is satisfied then the divine is in discontent. If the divine is satisfied then the animal is in discontent. A part is always in discontent.

If you move to the animal, in a way you satisfy part of your being, but immediately in that satisfaction dissatisfaction arises, because the opposite part, your future, is just contrary to it. The satisfaction of the animal is the dissatisfaction of the possibility of your future. If you satisfy your divine possibility the animal revolts; it feels hurt. A definite discontent arises within you. You cannot satisfy both, and satisfying one, the other is dissatisfied.

I remember one anecdote. One sports car enthusiast reached the pearly gates, and St. Peter welcomed him. He had come with his Jaguar, and the first thing he asked St. Peter was this: `Are there beautiful highways in heaven?'

St. Peter said, `Yes, they have the most beautiful highways, but there is one difficulty -- in heaven they don't allow automobiles.'

The speed-fiend said, `Then it is not for me. Then please arrange for me to be sent to the other place. I would like to go to hell. I cannot leave my Jaguar.'

So it was arranged. He reached hell, he came to the gates, and Satan welcomed him and said that he was very happy to see him. He said, `You are just like me; I am also a lover of Jaguars.'

The speed-fiend said, `Fine, give me the map of your highways.'

Satan became sad. He said, `Sir, we don't have any highways down here -- that is the hell of it!'

This is the situation of man. Man is Janus-faced, a double being, split in two. If you satisfy one thing, then something becomes frustrating to your other part. If you do otherwise, then the other part is dissatisfied. Something is always lacking. And you cannot satisfy both, because they are diametrically opposite.

And everyone is doing this impossible thing, trying to do this -- to have a compromise somewhere so both heaven and hell can meet; so body and soul, the lower and the higher, the past and the future, can somewhere meet and have a compromise. We have been doing that for many lives. It has not happened, and it is not going to happen. The whole effort is absurd, impossible.

These techniques are not concerned with creating a compromise within you. These techniques are to give you a transcendence. These techniques are not to satisfy the divine against the animal. That is impossible. That will create more turmoil within you, more violence, more struggle. These techniques are not to satisfy your animal against the divine. These techniques are just to transcend the duality. They are neither for the animal nor for the divine.

Remember, that is the basic difference between other religions and tantra. Tantra is not a religion, because religion basically means: for the divine against the animal -- so every religion is part of the conflict. Tantra is not a struggle technique, it is a transcendence technique. It is not to fight with the animal, it is not for the divine. It is against all duality. It is neither for nor against really. It is simply creating a third force within you, a third center of existence where you are neither animal nor divine. For tantra that third point is ADVAITA, that third point is non-duality.

Tantra says you cannot reach the one by fighting through duality. You cannot come to a non-dual point by choosing one thing in the struggle in duality. Choice will not lead you to the one; only a choiceless witnessing.

This is very foundational to tantra, and because of this tantra was never really understood rightly. It has suffered a long, a centuries-old misunderstanding, because the moment tantra says it is not against the animal, you start feeling as if tantra is for the animal. And the moment tantra says it is not for the divine, you then start thinking that tantra is against the divine.

Really, tantra is for a choiceless witnessing. Don't be with the animal, don't be with the divine, and don't create a conflict. Just go back, just go away, just create a gap between you and this duality and become a third force, a witnessing, from where you can see both the animal and the divine.

I told you that the animal is the past and the divine is the future, and past and future are opposed. Tantra is in the present. It is neither past nor future. Just this very moment, don't belong to the past and don't hanker for the future. Don't long for the future and don't be conditioned by the past. Don't allow the past to become a hangover and don't create any projections in the future. Remain true to this very moment, here and now, and you transcend. Then you are neither animal nor divine.

For tantra, to be such is to be God. To be such, in this suchness of the moment, where past is unrelated and future is not created, you are free, you are freedom.

These techniques are not religious in this sense, because religion is always opposed to the animal. Religion creates a conflict. So if you are really religious you will become schizophrenic, you will be split. All religious civilizations are split civilizations. They create neurosis, because they create inner conflict. They divide you into two, and one part of your being becomes the enemy. Then your whole energy is dissipated fighting with yourself.

Tantra is not religious in that sense, because tantra doesn't believe in any conflict, in any violence. And tantra says don't fight with yourself. Just be aware. Don't be aggressive and violent with yourself. Just be a witness, a watcher. In the moment of witnessing you are neither; both the faces disappear. In that moment of witnessing you are not human. You simply are. You exist without any label. You exist without any name. You exist without any category. You are without being anyone in particular -- a simple amness, a pure being. These techniques are for that pure being.

Now I will discuss the techniques.

The first technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING BEYOND PERCEPTION, BEYOND GRASPING, BEYOND NOT BEING  -- YOU.

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING BEYOND PERCEPTION -- that which cannot be seen, which cannot be perceived. But can you imagine something which cannot be seen? Imagination is always of that which can be seen. How can you imagine something, how can you suppose something, which cannot be perceived?

That which you can perceive you can imagine. You cannot even dream something which is not capable of being seen and perceived. That's why even your dreams are shadows of reality. Even your imagination is not pure imagination, because whatsoever you can imagine you have known somehow. You can create new combinations, but all the elements of the combination are known and perceived.

You can imagine a golden mountain flying in the sky like a cloud. You have not perceived such a thing ever, but you have perceived a cloud, you have perceived a mountain, you have perceived gold. These three elements can be combined. Imagination is not original; it is always a combination of something you have perceived.

This technique says:

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING

BEYOND PERCEPTION

It is impossible, b ut that's why it is worth doing, because in the very effort something will happen to you. Not that you will become capable of perceiving -- if you try to perceive something which cannot be perceived, all perception will be lost. In the very effort, if you try to see something which you have never seen, all that you have ever seen will disappear.

If you persist in the effort, many images will come to you -- you have to discard them, because you know that you have seen this; this can be perceived. You may not have seen it actually as it is, but even if you can imagine it, it can be perceived. Discard it. Go on discarding. This technique says to persist for that which cannot be perceived.

What will happen? If you go on discarding, it is going to be an arduous effort, because many images will bubble up. Your mind will supply many images, many dreams; many conceptions will come, many symbols. Your mind will create now combinations, but go on discarding unless something happens which cannot be perceived. What is that?

If you go on discarding, nothing will happen to you as an object; only the screen of the mind will be there with no image, with no symbol, with no dream on it, no picture on it. In that moment a metamorphosis happens. When the screen is simply there without any image, you become aware of yourself. You become aware of the perceiver. When there is nothing to be perceived, the whole attention changes. The whole consciousness reflects back. When you have nothing to see, for the first time you become aware of your own self. You start seeing yourself.

This sutra says:

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING

BEYOND PERCEPTION,

BEYOND GRASPING,

BEYOND NOT BEING

-- YOU.

Then you happen to yourself. For the first time you will become aware of the one who has been perceiving, who has been grasping, who has been knowing. But this subject is always hidden in objects. You know certain things but you never know the knower. The knower is lost in knowledge.

I see you, then I see someone else, and this procession goes on. From birth to death I will see this and that and that, and I will go on seeing and seeing. And the seer, the one who was seeing this procession, is forgotten; it is lost in the crowd. The crowd is of objects, and the subject is lost.

This sutra says if you try to CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING BEYOND PERCEPTION, BEYOND GRASPING -- which you cannot grasp by the mind -- BEYOND NOT BEING... Immediately the mind will say that if there is something which cannot be seen and cannot be grasped, it is not. The mind will immediately react that if something is not seeable, not perceivable, not graspable, then it is not. The mind will say that it doesn't exist. Don't become a victim of the mind.

This sutra says: ... BEYOND PERCEPTION, BEYOND GRASPING, BEYOND NOT BEING. The mind will say that this is nothing, this cannot exist, this is a not-being. The sutra says, don't believe in it. There is something which is being beyond not-being, which exists and which cannot be perceived, and which is not graspable: that is you.

You cannot perceive yourself, or can you? Can you imagine any situation in which you can encounter yourself, in which you can know yourself? You can go on using the word `self-knowledge', which is absolutely absurd, because you cannot know the self. The self is always the knower. It cannot be reduced to a known, it cannot be reduced to an object.

For example, if you think that you can know the self, then the self that you know will not be your self, but the one who is knowing the self will be the self. You will always remain the knower; you cannot become the known. You cannot put yourself in front of you; you will always recede back. Whatsoever you know cannot be yourself -- this means that you cannot know it. You cannot know it the way you know other things.

I cannot see myself the way I see you. Who will see? Because every relationship of knowledge, seeing, perception, melans that there are at least two things: the known and the knower. Self-knowledge is not possible in this sense, because there is only one. There the knower and the known are one; the observer and the observed are one. You cannot convert yourself into an object.

So the word `self-knowledge' is just wrong, but it connotes something, it says something which is true. You can know yourself in a very different sense, in an altogether different sense than from how you know other things. When there is nothing to be known, when all objects have disappeared, when all that can be perceived and grasped is no more, when you have discarded all, suddenly you become aware of yourself. And this awareness is not dual: there is no object and no subject. There is simply subjectivity.

This awareness is a different type of knowing. This awareness gives you a different dimension of existence. You are not divided in two. You are aware of yourself. You are not perceiving, you cannot grasp it, and yet it is existential -- the most existential.

Try to think in this way. We have energy: that energy goes on moving to objects. Energy cannot be static. Remember it as one of the ultimate laws: energy cannot be static, it is dynamic. It cannot be otherwise. Dynamism is its very nature -- energy moves. When I see you, my energy moves towards you. When I perceive you, a circle is made. My energy moves to you, then it comes back to me -- a circle is made.

If my energy moves to you and doesn't come back, I will not know you. A circle is needed: the energy must go and then come back to me. With its coming back it bring you to me. I know you. Knowledge means that energy has made a circle. It has moved from the subject to the object, and then it has moved again and come back to the original source. If I go on living in this way -- making circles with others -- I will never know myself, because my energy is filled with energies of others. It brings those images, it delivers those images to me. This is how you gather knowledge.

This technique says to allow the object to disappear from there. Allow your energy to move in a vacuum, in emptiness. It goes from you, but there is no object to be grasped by it, not object to be perceived by it. It moves and comes back to you through emptiness; there is no object. It brings no knowledge to you. It comes vacant, empty, pure. It brings nothing. It brings only itself. It comes virgin -- nothing has entered into it; it remains pure.

This is the whole process of meditation. You are sitting silently, your energy is moving. There is no object with which it can be contaminated, with which it can become entangled, with which it can become impressed, with which it can become one. Then you bring it back to yourself. There is no object, no thought, no image. Energy moves, the movement is pure, and then it comes back to you -- virgin. As it left you it comes; it carries nothing. An empty vehicle, it comes to you, it hits you. There is no knowledge carried by it; it is coming only by itself. In that penetration of pure energy you become aware of yourself.

If your energy is bringing something else, then you will become aware of that something. You look at a flower. The energy is bringing the flower to you -- the image of the flower, the smell of the flower, the color of the flower. The energy is bringing the flower to you. It is introducing you to the flower. Then you become acquainted with the flower. The energy is covered by the flower. You never become acquainted with the energy, the pure energy which is you. You are moving to the other and coming back to the source.

If there is nothing to impress it, if it comes unconditioned, if it comes as it had gone, if it brings itself, nothing else, you become aware of yourself. This is a pure circle of energy -- energy moving not to something else, but within you, creating a circle within you. Then there is no one else, only you moving within yourself. This movement becomes self-knowledge, self-illumination. Basically, all meditation techniques, all of them, are different variations of this.

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING

BEYOND PERCEPTION,

BEYOND GRASPING,

BEYOND NOT BEING

-- YOU.

If this can happen, then for the first time you will become aware of yourself, of your being, of your existence -- the subjectivity.

Knowledge is of two kinds: knowledge of objects, and knowledge of the subjectivity. Knowledge of the known, the knowable, and knowledge of the knower. And a man can know millions and millions of things, he can become acquainted with the whole world, but if he is not aware of the knower he is ignorant. He may be knowledgeable, but he is not wise. He may have collected much information, much knowledge, but the basic thing which makes one a knower is lacking -- he is not aware of himself.

In the Upanishads there is a story. Svetaketu, a young boy, came back from his master to his home. He had passed all his examinations, and he had passed well. All that the master could give him, he had collected. He had become very egoistic.

When he reached his father's house, the first thing the father asked Svetaketu was this: `You seem to be too filled with knowledge, and your knowledge is making you very egoistic -- the way you walk, the way you have entered the house. I have only one question to ask you. Have you known that who knows all? Have you known that by knowing which everything is known? Have you known yourself?'

Svetaketu said, `But there was no course for it in the school, and the master never discussed it. I have known everything that can be known. You ask me anything and I will answer you. But what type of question are you raising? It was never discussed.'

The father said, `Then you go back, and unless you know that by knowing which everything is known, and without knowing which nothing is known, don't come back. First know yourself.'

Svetaketu went back. He asked the master, `My father says I cannot be allowed to go back home, I cannot be welcomed there, because he says that in our family we have been Brahmins not only by birth. We have been knowers, knowers of Brahma, Brahmins, not only by birth but by real authentic knowledge. So he said, "Unless you become a real Brahmin, not by birth, but by knowing the Brahma, by knowing the ultimate, don't enter the house. You are not worthy of us." So now teach me that.'

The teacher said, `All that can be taught I have taught you. And that is something which cannot be taught. So you do one thing: you simply be available for it. It cannot be directly taught. You simply be receptive; some day it will happen. You take all the cows of the ashram...' The ashram had many cows; they say four hundred. `You take all the cows to the forest. Remain with the cows: stop thinking, stop verbalizing, just become a cow. Remain with the cows, love them, and be silent as cows are silent. When the cows become one thousand, come back.'

So Svetaketu went with four hundred cows to the forest. There was no use in thinking, there was no one to talk to. By and by his mind became just like a cow. He sat silently under the trees, and for many years he had to wait, because only when the cows became one thousand could he come back. By and by language disappeared from his mind. By and by society disappeared from his mind. By and by he became not a human being at all. His eyes became just like cows'.

And the story is very beautiful. The story says he forgot how to count -- because if language disappears and verbalizations disappears.... He forgot how to count, he forgot when he had to return. The story is beautiful. The cows said, `Svetaketu, now we are one thousand. Now let us go back to the master's house. He must be waiting.'

Svetaketu came back, and the master said to the other disciples, `Count the cows.'

The cows were counted and the disciples said, `Yes, there are one thousand cows.'

And the master is reported to have said, `Not one thousand, one thousand and one -- that's Svetaketu.'

He was standing amidst the cows, silent, just being there, with no thought, with no mind. Just like a cow -- pure, simple, innocent. And the master said, `You need not enter. Now go back to your father's house. You have known; it has happened to you. Why have you come again to me? It has happened to you.'

It happens: when there is no object in the mind to know, the knower happens to you. When the mind is not filled by thoughts, when there is not a single ripple, when there is not a single wave, you are there alone. There is nothing other than you. Obviously you become aware of your self; for the first time you become filled by yourself. A self-illumination happens.

This sutra is one of the foundational ones. Try it. It is arduous, because the habit of thinking, the habit of clinging to objects, to that which can be perceived and that which can be grasped, is so deep-rooted, so ingrained, that it will take time and a very persistent effort not to be involved in objects, not to be involved in thoughts, but to just become a witness and discard them and say, `No, not this, not this.'

The whole technique of the Upanishads is condensed in two words; NETI, NETI -- not this, not this. Whatsoever comes to the mind, say, `Not this.' Go on saying and discarding and throwing all the furniture out. The room has to be empty, totally empty. When emptiness is there, then that happens. If something else is there you go on being impressed by it, and you cannot know yourself. Your innocence is lost in objects. A thought-ridden mind is moving outwards. You cannot be related to yourself.

The second technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

I AM EXISTING. THIS IS MINE. THIS IS THIS. O BELOVED, EVEN IN SUCH KNOW ILLIMITABLY.

I AM EXISTING. You never enter deeply into this feeling. I AM EXISTING. You are existing, but you never dig deep into this phenomenon. Shiva says: I AM EXISTING. THIS IS MINE. THIS IS THIS. OH BELOVED, EVEN IN SUCH KNOW ILLIMITABLY.

I will tell you one Zen anecdote. Three friends were walking along a road. Evening was just falling and the sun was setting when they become aware of a monk standing on a nearby hill. They started talking about the monk, wondering what he was doing there. One of them said, `He must be waiting for his friends. He must have gone for a walk from his hermitage and his friends are left behind, so he is waiting for them to come.'

The other denied that and said, `This is not right, because if a person waits for someone, sometimes he will look backwards. But he is not looking backwards at all. So my assumption is this -- that he is not waiting for anyone. Rather, he must have lost his cow. Evening is coming near, and the sun is setting, and soon it will be dark, so he is looking for his cow. He is standing there on the hilltop, and looking for where the cow is in the forest.'

The third one said, `This cannot be right, because he is standing so silently, not moving at all, and it seems that he is not looking at all; his eyes are closed. He must be in prayer. He is not looking for any lost cow or waiting for some friends who have been left behind.;'

They couldn't decide. They argued and argued and then they said, `We must go to the top of the hill and ask the man himself what he is doing.'

So they reached the monk. The first one said, `Are you waiting for your friends who are left behind to come?'

The monk opened his eyes and said, `I am not waiting for anyone. And I have neither friends nor enemies to wait for.' He closed his eyes again.

The other one said, `Then I must be right. Are you looking for your cow which is lost in the forest?'

He said, `No, I am not looking for anyone -- for any cow or anyone. I am not interested in anything except myself.'

So the third one said, `Then certainly, definitely, you are doing some prayer or some meditation.'

The monk opened his eyes and said, `I am not doing anything at all. I am just being here. I am just being here, not doing anything at all. I am just being here.'

This is what Buddhists say meditation is. If you do something, it is not meditation -- you have moved far away. If you pray, it is not meditation -- you have started chattering. If you use some word, it is not prayer, it is not meditation -- the mind has entered in. That man said the right thing. He said, `I am just being here, not doing anything.'

This sutra says this: I AM EXISTING. Go deep into this feeling. Just sitting, go deep into this feeling -- I AM EXISTING, I AM. Feel it, don't think it, because you can say it in the mind -- I AM -- and it is futile. Your head is your undoing. Don't go on repeating in the head I AM, I AM EXISTING. It is futile, it is useless. You miss the point.

Feel it deep down in your bones. Feel it all over your body. Feel it as a total unit, not in the head. Just feel it -- I AM. Don't use the words `I am'. Because I am relating to you, I am using the words. `I am'. And Shiva was relating to Parvati, so he had to use the words `I am existing'. Don't. Don't go on repeating. This is not a mantra. You are not to repeat I AM EXISTING, I AM EXISTING. If you repeat this you will fall asleep, you will become self-hypnotized.

If you go on repeating a certain thing, you become auto-hypnotized. First you get bored, then you feel sleepy, and then your awareness is lost. You will come back from it very much refreshed, just like after a deep sleep. It is good for health, but it is not meditation. If you are suffering from insomnia you can use chanting, a mantra. It is as good as any tranquillizer, or even better. You can go on repeating a certain word: repeating constantly in a monotonous tone you will fall asleep.

Anything that creates monotony will give you deep sleep. So psychoanalysts and psychologists go on telling people who suffer from insomnia to just listen to the tick-tock of the clock. Go on listening to it and you will fall asleep, because the tick-tock becomes a lullaby.

The child in the mother's womb sleeps continuously for nine months, and the heart of the mother goes on... tick-tock. That becomes a conditioning, a deep conditioning -- the continuous repetition of the heart. That's why whenever someone takes you near his heart, you feel good. Tick-tock -- you feel sleepy, relaxed. Anything that gives monotony gives relaxation; you can fall asleep.

In a village you can sleep more deeply than in a city, because a village is monotonous. The city is not monotonous. Every moment something new is happening; the traffic noises go on changing. In a village everything is monotonous, the same. Really, in a village there is no news, nothing happens; everything moves in a circle. So villagers sleep deeply, because life around them is monotonous. In a city, sleep is difficult, because life around you is very sensational; everything changes.

You can use any mantra: RAM, RAM, AUM, AUM -- anything. You can use Jesus Christ; you can use Ave Maria. You can use any word and monotonously chant it; it will give you deep sleep. You can even do this: Raman Maharshi used to give the technique WHO AM I? And people started using it as mantra. They would sit with closed eyes and they would go on repeating. `Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?' It had become a mantra. That was not the purpose.

So don't make it a mantra, and sitting, don't say, `I am existing.' There is no need. Everyone knows, and you know already that you are existing; there is no need, it is futile. Feel it -- I AM EXISTING. Feeling is a different thing, totally different. Thinking is a trick to escape from feeling. It is not only different, it is a deception.

What do I mean when I say to feel I AM EXISTING? I am sitting in this chair. If I start feeling I AM EXISTING, I will become aware of many things: the pressure on the chair, the touch of the velvet, the air passing through the room, the noise touching my body, the blood circulating silently, the heart, the breathing that goes on continuously, and a subtle vibrating feeling of the body. Because the body is a dynamism; it is not a static thing. You are vibrating. Continuously there is a subtle trembling and while you are alive it will continue. The trembling is there.

You will become aware of all these multidimensional things. And the more you become aware of the many things that are happening.... If right now you become aware of whatsoever is happening within you and without, this is what is meant by I AM EXISTING. If you become aware in this way, thinking will stop, because when you feel you are existing it is such a total phenomenon that thinking cannot continue.

In the beginning you will feel thoughts floating. By and by, the more you get rooted in existence, the more and more you settle down in the feeling of being, the thoughts will be far away, you will feel a distance -- as if those thoughts are not now happening to you, but they are happening to someone else, very very far away. There is a distance. And then, when you are really rooted, grounded in the being, mind will disappear. You will be there with not a single word, not a single mental image.

Why does this happen? -- because mind is a particular activity for relating with others. If I am to relate with you I will have to use my mind, language, words. It is a social phenomenon; it is a group activity. So even if you are talking while alone, you are not alone -- you are talking to someone. Even when you are alone, when you are talking you are talking to someone; you are not alone. How can you talk alone? Someone is present in the mind and you are talking to him.

I was reading the autobiography of a professor of philosophy. He relates that one day he was going to take his daughter, who was five years old, to school, and after leaving her at the school he was going to go to the university to deliver his lecture. So he was preparing his lecture on the way, and he forgot all about his daughter who was sitting just by his side in the car, and he started lecturing loudly. The girl listened for a few moments and then she asked, `Daddy, are you talking with me or without me?'

Even when you are talking it is never without, it is always with -- with someone. He may not be present, but to you he is present; for your mind he is there. All thinking is a dialogue. Thinking as such is a dialogue, it is a social activity. That's why if a child is brought up without any society, he will not know any language. He will not be able to verbalize. It is society which gives you language; without society there is no language. Language is a social phenomenon.

When you get grounded within yourself, there is no society, there is no one. You alone exist. Mind disappears. You are not relating to anyone, not even in imagination, so mind disappears. You are there without the mind, and this is what meditation is -- being without the mind. Being perfectly alert and conscious, not unconscious, feeling existence in its totality, in its multidimensionality, but the mind has suddenly disappeared.

And with the mind many things disappear. With the mind, your name, with the mind, your form; with the mind, that you are a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Parsee; with the mind, that you are good or bad; with the mind, that you are a saint or a sinner; with the mind, that you are ugly or beautiful -- everything disappears. All that is labelled on you suddenly is not there. You are in your pristine purity. In your total innocence you are there; in your virginity -- grounded, not floating, rooted in that which is.

With the mind you can move into the past. With the mind you can move into the future. Without mind you cannot move into the past or into the future. Without mind you are here and now -- just this moment is all eternity. Nothing exists except this moment. Bliss happens. You need not go in any search. Rooted in the moment, rooted in the being, you are blissful. And this bliss is not something which is happening really to you -- you are it.

I AM EXISTING. Try it. And you can do it anywhere. Just riding in a bus, or travelling in a train, or just sitting, or lying down on your bed, try to feel existence as it is; don't think about it. Suddenly you will become aware that you have not known many things which are continuously happening to you. You have not felt your body. You have your hands, but you have not ever felt it -- what it says, and what it continuously goes on informing you; how it feels.

Sometimes it is heavy and sad, sometimes it is happy and light. Sometimes everything flows in it, sometimes everything is dead. Sometimes you feel it alive, dancing, sometimes as if there is no life in it -- frozen, dead; hanging on you, but not alive.

When you start feeling your being, you will come to know the moods of your hands, of your eyes, of your nose, of your body. It is a big phenomenon; there are subtle nuances. The body goes on telling you and you are not there to hear it. And existence all around you goes on penetrating you in subtle ways, in many ways, in different ways, but you are not aware. You are not there to receive it, to welcome it.

When you start feeling existence, the whole world becomes alive to you in a totally new way; you have not known it. Then you pass through the same street and the street is not the same, because now you are grounded in existence. You meet the same friends but they are not the same, because you are different. You come back to your house and the wife you have lived with for years is not the same.

Now you are aware of your own being, you become aware of the other's being. When the wife becomes angry, you can enjoy even her anger, because now you can feel what is happening. And if you can feel it, anger my not look like anger; it may become love. If you can feel it deep down, then anger shows that she still loves you. Otherwise she would not be angry; she would not bother. She still waits for you the whole day. She is angry because she loves you. She is not indifferent.

Remember, anger or hate or not the real opposites of love -- indifference is the real opposite. When someone is indifferent to you, love is lost. If someone is not even ready to be angry with you, then everything is lost. But ordinarily if your wife is angry you react more violently, you become aggressive. You cannot understand the symbolic meaning of it. You are not grounded in yourself. You have not really known your own anger; that's why you cannot understand others' anger.

If you know your own anger, if you can feel it in its total mood, then you know others' anger also. You are angry only when you love someone, otherwise there is no need. Through anger the wife is saying that she still loves you, she is not indifferent to you. She has been waiting, waiting, and now the whole waiting has become anger.

She may not say it directly, because the language of feeling is not direct. And that has become a big problem today -- because you cannot understand the language of feeling, because you don't know your own feelings. You are not grounded in your own being. You can understand only words, you cannot understand feelings. Feelings have their own way of expression, and they are more basic, more real.

Once you get acquainted with your own existence, you will become aware of others' existence also. And everyone is so mysterious, and everyone is such a deep abyss to be known -- an infinite possibility of being penetrated and known. And everyone is waiting that someone should penetrate, go deep, and feel his or her heart. But because you have not known your own heart, you cannot know anyone else's. The nearest heart remains unknown, so how can you know others; hearts?

You move as a zombie, and you move in a crowd of zombies; everyone is fast asleep. You have only this much alertness: that you pass through fast-asleep people and without any accident you come to your home, that's all. This much alertness you have got. This is the minimum which is possible to man, that's why you are so bored, so dull. Life is just a long heaviness, and deep down everyone is waiting for death, in order to be delivered from life. Death seems to be the only hope.

Why is this happening? Life can be infinite bliss. Why is this so boring? You are not grounded in it. You are uprooted; uprooted, and living at the minimum. And life really happens when you live at the maximum.

This sutra will give you a maximum of existence. Thought can give you only a minimum; feeling can give you the maximum. Through mind there is no way to existence; through heart is the only way.

I AM EXISTING. Feel it through the heart. And feel THIS EXISTENCE IS MINE. THIS IS MINE. THIS IS THIS. This is very beautiful I AM EXISTING. Feel it, be grounded in it; then know THIS IS MINE -- this existence, this overflowing being is mine.

You go on saying that this house is mine, this furniture is mine. You go on talking about your possessions, and you never know what you really possess. You possess total being. You possess the deepest possibility, the center-most core of existence in you. Shiva says: I AM EXISTING. Feel this. THIS IS MINE.

This too is not to be made a thought; remember that continuously. Feel it -- this is mine, this existence -- and then you will feel gratitude. How can you thank God? Your thankfulness is superficial, formal. And look what a misery... even with God we are formal. How can you be grateful? You have not known anything to be grateful for.

If you can feel yourself rooted in existence, merged in it, overflowing with it, and allow even dancing with it, then you will feel, `This is mine. This existence belongs to me. This whole mysterious universe belongs to me. This whole existence has been existing for me. It has created me. I am a flower of it.'

This consciousness that has happened to you is the greatest flower that has happened to the universe. And for millions and millions of years this earth was preparing for you to exist.

THIS IS MINE AND THIS IS THIS. To feel, `This is what life is, THIS IS THIS -- this suchness. I was unnecessarily worried. I was unnecessarily a beggar, unnecessarily thinking in terms of begging. I am the master.'

When you are rooted, you are one with the whole, and the existence exists for you. You are not a beggar; you become an emperor suddenly. THIS IS THIS.

OH BELOVED,

EVEN IN SUCH KNOW ILLIMITABLY.

And while feeling this, don't create a limit to it. Feel it illimitably. Don't create a boundary to it; there is none. It ends nowhere. The world begins nowhere; the world ends nowhere. Existence has no beginning and no end. You also don't have any beginning; you also don't have any end.

Beginning and end are because of the mind -- mind has a beginning and mind has an end. Go backwards, travel backwards into your life: there comes a moment where everything stops -- there is a beginning. You can remember back to when you were three years of age, or, at the most, two years of age -- that is rare -- but then memory stops. You can travel backwards to when you were two years of age. What does it mean? And you cannot remember anything previous to that, previous to that age of two years. Suddenly there is a blank, you don't know anything.

Do you remember anything about your birth? Do you know anything about the nine months in your mother's womb? You were, but the mind was not there. Mind started around the age of two; that's why you can remember back to that age. Then there is no mind, memory stops. Mind has a beginning, mind has an end, but you are beginningless.

If in deep meditation, in such meditation you can come to feel existence, then there is no mind -- a beginningless, endless flow of energy, of cosmic force; an infinite ocean around you, and you are just a wave in it. The wave has a beginning and an end -- the ocean has none. And once you know that you are not the wave but the ocean, all misery has disappeared.

What is deep down in your misery? -- deep down there is death. You are afraid of some end which is going to be there. It is absolutely certain; nothing is so certain as death -- the fear, the trembling. Whatsoever you do, you are helpless. Nothing can be done -- death is going to be there. And that goes on and on inside in the conscious and unconscious mind. Sometimes it erupts in the conscious -- you become afraid of death. You push it down, and then it continues in the unconscious. Every moment you are afraid of death, of the end.

Mind is going to die, you are not going to die -- but you don't know yourself. You know something which is just a created thing: it has a beginning, it is going to have an end. That which begins must end. If you can find within your being something which never begins, which simply is, which cannot end, then the fear of death disappears. And when the fear of death disappears, love flows through you, not before it.

How can you love when there is going to be death? You can cling to someone, but you cannot love. You can use someone, but you cannot love. You can exploit someone, but you cannot love.

Love is not possible if fear is there. Fear is the poison. Love cannot flower with fear deep inside. Everyone is going to die. Everyone is standing in a queue waiting for his time. How can you love? Everything seems nonsense. Love appears nonsense if death is there, because death will destroy everything. Even love is not eternal. Whatsoever you do for your beloved, for your lover, you cannot do anything because you cannot avoid death -- it is just waiting behind everything.

You can forget it, you can create a facade, and you can go on believing that it is not going to be there, but your belief is just superficial -- deep down you know it is going to be there. And if death is there, then life is meaningless. You can create artificial meanings, but they won't help much. Temporarily, for some moments, they can help, and again the reality erupts and the meaning is lost. You can just deceive yourself continuously, that's all -- unless you come to know something which is beginningless and endless, which is beyond death.

Once you come to know it, then love is possible, because then there is no death. Love is possible. Buddha loves you, Jesus loves you, but that love is absolutely unknown to you. That love has come because fear has disappeared, and your love is just a mechanism to avoid fear. So whenever you love, you feel fearless. Someone gives you strength.

And this is a mutual phenomenon: you give strength to someone and someone gives strength to you. Both are weak, and both are seeking someone, and then two weak persons meet and they help each other to be strong -- this is just wonderful! How does it happen? It is just a make-believe. You feel that someone is there behind you, with you, but you know no one can be with you in death. And if someone cannot be with you in death, how can he or she be with you in life? Then it is just postponing, just avoiding death. And because you are afraid, you need someone to make you fearless.

It is said, somewhere Emerson has written, that even the greatest warrior is a coward before his wife. Even a Napoleon is a coward, because the wife knows that he needs her strength, he needs her in order to be himself. He depends on her. When he comes back from the war, from the fighting, he is trembling, afraid. He rests in her, he relaxes in her. She consoles him; he becomes just like a child. Every husband is a child before the wife. And the wife? -- she depends on the husband. She lives through him. She cannot live without him;he is her life.

This is a mutual deception. Both are afraid -- death is there. They both try to love each other and forget death. Lovers become, or appear to be, fearless. Lovers even sometimes can face death very fearlessly, but that is just appearance.

Our love is part of fear -- just to escape from it. Real love happens when there is no fear -- when death has disappeared, when you know you never begin and you are never going to end. Don't think it. You can think it, because of the fear. You can think, `Yes, I know I am not going to end, there is no death, the soul is immortal.' You can think because of fear -- that will not help.

If you move deep in meditation it will happen. Fear will disappear, because you know yourself endlessly. You go on spreading endlessly -- back into the past, forward into the future, and this very moment, this present moment, in the depth of it you are there. You simply are -- you never begin, you are never going to end.

FEEL THIS ILLIMITABLY -- infinitely.