Early Talks ~ 07

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event type discourse
date & time 24 Sept ~ 2 Oct 1969 ? pm
location Pahalgam
language English
audio Missing, probably available
online audio
video Not available
online video
see also
online text
shorttitle EARLY07
notes
Talk with followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and himself.
See Talk:Early Talks. And see The Eternal Quest ~ 11: the relation with that discourse should be researched.
Editor: A reliable correspondent has told that an audio recording of this conversation has been made, by Ma Dharm Jyoti. The audio should be available at OIF, but has not been published.
synopsis
Reader of the questions: unknown.
A photo from the 2018 book Maharishi & Me, by Susan Shumsky.
Photo caption: 1969, Pahalgam, Kashmir: Maharishi (l. on couch) debates spiritual master Rajneesh (r. on couch). (See page 206.) Photo courtesy of Jared Stoltz
Question 1
Since the material aspect of life is governed by physical application of the essence of life, it would seem that without any method at all that there would be no result since we must go from the physical to the non-physical. So my question is: there must be some mechanical process involved, there must be, even if it is only working on a level, you know?
Question 2
You say that there is no technique to achieve the consciousness of being. Then, one shouldn't do anything. Right?
Question 3
I see that. But it seems to me that if we are really going to look at it as being no technique... I mean we do nothing. Just coming up to the mountain and doing anything -- like meditating, or sitting, or anything -- is a technique of a sort.
Question 4
You say, in other words, that a situation has to arrive where the mind is by itself for a period of time with no thought or no motion. And yet you say there is no way to really do that, it just happens. So if you are working in a shop, why come to the mountains, why sit down, why do anything?
Question 5
But what is the value of that knowledge? It strikes me that the only value of that knowledge is not to undertake any spiritual activity. In other words, what does that give you beyond ignorance of any sort of spiritual activity where you just live your life for whatever reason you would live it, and if you happen to reach that state automatically you reach it? What's the point of knowing that? That's what I want to know.
Question 6
And then it will happen? If one is aware of this situation then one, without any further anything, will automatically at certain times go into that state -- is that it?
Question 7
But if one is always accustomed to activity, isn't it then an effort not to be active?
Question 8
They wouldn't come by themselves unless you had this intellectual awareness, though.
Question 9
But aren't you using your intellect to be open? I think to myself, I will be open, and that is an effort of some sort. In other words, if one is truly open without effort, then it probably wouldn't occur to oneself to be open.
Question 10
Isn't it possible to use that tendency of the mind, that engagement of the mind to good purpose?
Question 11
Maybe we can give it something very engaging, so beautiful that it will engage the mind to something that is the most beautiful of all.
Question 12
But if there is something more beautiful than what the mind is occupied with, then it will throw off what it is not....
Question 13
Yes. But what I am saying is, you talk of how the mind constantly is engaged. Now I am saying that isn't it possible that we can give the mind....
Question 14
... A thought that is so beautiful to the mind that....
Question 15
No, no, I'm not.
Question 16
No, no, no.
Question 17
No, I am not thinking it is so beautiful. The mind likes enjoyment, yes?
Question 18
Fine. Now, if the mind likes enjoyment, it will naturally be enjoyed with thoughts. Now is it possible that there is one thought that can be in the mind that is so beautiful it will keep the mind entertained until it finds something that is ultimate beauty -- namely bliss, the self? Is that possible?
Question 19
Why?
Question 20
What becomes of the desire? Let's say you escape all worldly pleasures? Now how do you account for the desire that remains after you cut whatever it is you cut?
Question 21
If realization, if the ultimate beauty or knowledge of God, of bliss, of reality, lies in the self, why are we constantly trying to escape from the self? It would seem to me if that's where it all lies, what a cruel trick for nature to play on us. We run away from what we are most looking for -- it seems illogical.
Question 22
Do you know all at once, or could one feel the bliss of the self before confronting God?
Question 23
You said earlier that the mind comes into a vacuum, if I understood correctly. If the nature of the mind is to think, then to put the mind into a vacuum would be going against the nature of the mind.
Question 24
What is the nature of the mind?
Question 25
The nature of the mind is to think, and then it ceases to think. What do you do in order to cause it not to think? Does it naturally not think?
Question 26
It becomes more subtle until it stops....
Question 27
That's a technique, which you've been discouraging.
Question 28
It's like a fuse on a piece of dynamite; the fuse burns a little bit at a time, right? And when it reaches the dynamite, then it explodes. But the path to the explosion nevertheless is a scientific process. It can be predicted, it can be measured and it can be taught to other people no?
Question 29
Not the result, the approach to the result.
Question 30
If you take the same fuse and you light it with your eyes closed or you light it with your eyes open, the dynamite's still going to explode.
Question 31
How do you know that?
Question 32
In the Bible there's a very short sentence and it says, "Be still and know."
Question 33
"Be still and know that I am God."
Question 34
You have defined mind for us, I would ask you to define awareness. Someone else used the phrase "intellectual awareness" and you didn't test him on that. I would like you to define awareness.
Question 35
Do you agree with that sentence then that says, "Be still and know"?
Question 36
Every man speaks from his own experience, his own level, right? Isn't it possible that there might be a technique that would work that perhaps you haven't experienced.
Question 37
But everyone thinks....
Question 38
Everyone wants pleasure from thinking.
Question 39
So maybe there is something there that can be used for everyone. The individual knowing -- that's individual. But is it not possible that since everyone's mind wants to think, wants to enjoy, it's possible to somehow do something with that?
Question 40
Why?
Question 41
How long does it take to....
Question 42
If you had proof that this technique did work. If you would try the technique -- like flipping a light switch on -- and you recognized the fact that this switch... This condition, that would bring the mind to this absolute....
Question 43
Each one finds this for himself only by being given the keys....
Question 44
Don't believe it! This is so scientific, do not have faith in it and don't believe it. Just try it. That's all we ask. And when one starts to recognize the expansion of mind. This greater energy, the greater energy for all things in life...
Question 45
It seems that there might be a slight confusion about the word 'technique' here. What we're speaking about in terms of the word 'technique' is not a process where the mind is held up at each level. Or actually engages in some thought through an intellectual process whereby there is an experiencer and an object of experience.
Question 46
What we're speaking about is a technique whereby through no effort at all, through a situation which is entirely innocent, which is in each person, the object of experience becomes subtler, subtler, subtle until the object of experience is transcended, and we're in a state of pure experience -- alone. The self is left alone with the self. Not through any technique as such, but through a very innocent, effortless, natural flow of the mind to this state.
Question 47
No, but we do!
Question 48
Not so! If you will excuse me saying so, in the new testament, Christ says, "By their fruits ye shall know them." When we come out of meditation, the things which we have been feeling and doing which are negative just don't happen. We are much happier out of meditation.
Question 49
We are not here to teach you the way of transcendental meditation, but to hear from you your path. And I think it's better now to perhaps start with you telling us something of your path.
Well, what I'd like to know is, when you realize your stillness you say that knowledge comes all at once. Well, I imagine it would, take a while until this would come, right? But then after this has come, are you like an enlightened man forever, or do you have to repeat this path?
Question 50
You only have to do it once and then when you stop doing it.... But what if you live in the world? How are your perceptions of the world and your actions in the world changed?
Question 51
This state of explosion, is there a corresponding state of the nervous system? What is the state of the physical nervous system that corresponds to the state you are speaking of?
Question 52
Is it a dreaming or a waking or a deep sleep?... Is there breathing? If a person looked at that body, would he describe it as being different than before it exploded?
Question 53
You see, what I am trying to establish is that in transcendental meditation this state of not in illusion corresponds to a physical state of the nervous system that possibly is the same to which you are referring, and that is the state of what is called restful alertness. Where there is no breath and the metabolic rate is lowered to nil. But the point is: is there a state of the nervous system that one can look at and observe...?
Question 54
It's obvious by now that we can't arrive at a conclusion using words, so therefore, if you call my experience an illusion....
Question 55
Is it illusion or the end of illusion?
Question 56
My end is not an illusion; you can't call my end of absolute being my illusion.
Question 57
But in your state of enlightenment, are you a witness to everything around you?
Question 58
You're not a witness any more?
Question 59
Are there thoughts too?
Question 60
You do not have thoughts?
Question 61
Yes, that's what I mean. What is your relationship to those thoughts?
Question 62
Are you the thought, or do you watch the thought?
Question 63
I thought you said you just use thoughts as a vehicle, as a means of expression.
Question 64
So there are thoughts. All right. Now, what is your relationship to the thoughts?
Question 65
Then you are your thoughts.
Question 66
There's just one.
Question 67
Let me go back a little while here. You said before that you could not experience this. But how could you talk about explosion without experiencing it?
Question 68
Without knowing the explosion, could one talk about it?
Question 69
It comes in degrees?
Question 70
I want to make sure I understand: in your philosophy is the mind and the self the same?
Question 71
The mind and the self are then the same?
Question 72
What happens to the self when the mind ceases?
Question 73
The mind is a physical thing, is it not?
Question 74
You are making a distinction between the brain and the mind?
Question 75
I just want to make an observation. I think it is very obvious to me -- I don't know if it is obvious to many people -- that in this situation with the person we are communicating with.... He hasn't even given his position, so we have done a reverse technique... to defend our position. Remember what Shakespeare said: "Thou doth protest too much." It is an indication to me of a lot of insecurity that we all have about our position. Why don't we let our learned gentleman -- who I basically agree with everything he says on an intellectual level -- state his position, and what his movement is about, because that is what we want to learn about.
Question 76
Can you tell us how you manage to get an unoccupied mind -- because that is the first step for your experience, yes?
Question 77
Can a vacant, an unoccupied mind be a dynamic, a creative mind?
Question 78
Awakened, but I said vacant and unoccupied.
Question 79
So in the state of enlightenment it is no longer vacant and unoccupied, it is occupied?
Question 80
What do you mean by creative?
Question 81
Watching it?
What about the process of observation?
Question 82
By explaining this process, you only explained to us what we should not do, but we want to know what to do.
Question 83
That's a fullness too. You are filling the mind with negative things, not to do this, not to do that. That's horrible!
I have a question, sir. Before we try to start you on transcendental meditation, I think you said something about "Freedom from the known." Strangely, coincidentally, this is a title of a book by Krishnamurti. I would like to ask if he is in accord with you, and more pointedly, is there something I can do to liberate myself?
Question 84
But is there anything I can do to liberate myself from it all? Is there something that I can do -- must I simply sit and wait and hope, or can I act?
Question 85
That's again process ....
Question 86
What is it?
Question 87
Again the process....
Question 88
Because stopping something means, I thought....
Question 89
Again a process?
Question 90
What you are saying and what you are teaching cannot be thought, because....
Question 91
How long will it take to learn the technique of not using a technique?
Question 92
But is understanding the same as being?
Question 93
I think we are saying the same thing. It's just a matter of vocabulary and semantics. Why should we make an issue out of it when basically we agree?
Except, except ....
We make it simple, you make it difficult!
Question 94
Does it depend on what level the mind is on?
Question 95 - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:
It is necessary to be here. It is necessary to be here only if we are there. If we are here then it is not necessary to be here. We have gone there, and if we have gone there, in illusion we are here. Now enlightenment will be that we come back here. So there is here. If we have to come back, then we have to come back. That means it's a procedure whether we come back in a car or in a jet or..... If you have gone really.....
Question 96 - Maharishi:
Fine, beautiful. Here and here! But from sleep to waking, from one to the other, there is no difference in space. But there is ...... in time. Sleep and waking, and if there is simultaneous solution that we have accomplished through actually...... If I become awake, there is no question that I am awake. And for me I believe I do have to be awake. I am. So if I am not and if I have to be, then that way I adopt a technique, a procedure, a simple something, so that the difficulty may be over. The teaching of spirituality is to show a simple, natural, direct way which will prove to be a very less way. Actually speaking, Acharya Rajneesh means that there cannot be a way to the only present because that is there where I am, that is where I am, and therefore, because the state of enlightenment is awareness of the omnipresent unboundedness which my own nature is, therefore, there cannot be a way to it that if I am held up in the waking state or in the dreaming or sleeping as is our ordinary state of awareness, then I am not open to that which is omnipresent. If I am open to the omnipresent, if my awareness is already bad (back?) then I am here and I am, but I am and the device is needed. But I am not open to myself then I have to be opened to myself, thrown to where I am opened. If I am opened here and here and here in the gross field of perception, then my perception has to be brought to finer regions, and then it has to travel to that fineness and get to that unboundedness of your awareness.
When I have done...... in transcendental awareness will increase. But a teacher is needed. A ...... is needed. So that shifting of the awareness from the waking to the transcendental has to be correct so that if something has to be achieved then that way it can be achieved in a systematic manner, so that it is easily achieved. And if nothing is to be achieved, then, if I am established in the goal, fine. I don't have to take the course in any method or anything.
When you are on the path, then you are on the path. Then you have transcended the path, and you can only transcend the path by trekking it. The reality of the path is experience, experience, experience. The reality of the goal is that we are in a state of being. As long as you are proceeding, as long as the awareness is not open to that unbounded, pure, transcendental consciousness, as long as your experience in something......
Transcending on the verge of the finest perception is of the immediate. That can be gross perception or, if one has arrived at the finest perception that one has, then he experiences. And ..... he experiences eventually in a very systematic manner the awareness reaches the pure awareness -- it transcends. Transcending is applicable from the level of gross perception, through all the subtle perceptions, to the subtlest perception. Transcending, one has to take one's awareness, and this is the method. What can be refuted is the practice of meditation if I have already achieved cosmic consciousness where the pure awareness is already established. But if I know I am not living in this consciousness, then something has to be done to live it. And if you can say there is nothing to be done, fine. Nothing is to be done and the ..... can be achieved.
Question 97
But how do you know it?
Question 98
But you know it afterwards.
Question 99 - Maharishi:
The state of enlightenment is not inertia. It is an achievement. God-realization, when we say you have God-realization, it is an achievement from the state where you have not achieved it. Enlightenment, the very word enlightenment, means "I was so long in ignorance, and now I am in light"; so this, in the common language of ignorance, is called enlightenment. In the language of the enlightened people it has ever been, it is ever; nothing has been realized. If you have lost the awareness of your glasses and then you begin to be aware of the glasses here and here, you have the glasses on, but yet you are searching and somebody says it is there, it is lost. It is lost in the awareness. It was present there certainly. If achieved, it is realized. It has been there, but I have lost it; without really losing it I have lost it, and without really gaining it, I have gained it. It is there. So this is the achievement of the already achieved. Omnipresent is that thing, and eternal is that thing. And it is nothing that I was never not it, or it is nothing that I would at one time be it. From this level of ..... state of awareness, nothing to be achieved, nothing to be done, nothing to be done. And, therefore, if there is need of achieving it, there is need of being that we achieve it quickly through a technique. It happens, it happens, and then it will happen at all, at all, at all.
These are different ways of expressing. There is a story in some Upanishad with three or four very good seekers of truth come to an acharya and said, "We want to ask some questions." He said, "Questions to ask? All right. Remain in my ashram for a year, and after that I'll give a chance, and if I know the reality, I'll tell you." He doesn't give a guarantee that even after the year he will tell them actually where ..... are. He just says, "Remain in my ashram, and after a year." With preconditions, with a devotional attitude -- service to the master, obedience. What is the relevance? If someone knows a thing, if you ask in good faith, but it is necessary to get acquainted with the language of a teacher. It is to the expression that we can go. And if you live with him for some time, then you know what he means by what. The Indians feel you have to be near a teacher to know what he means by what expression. Otherwise he has his usual way of expressing; you have your usual way of understanding. There may not be any connection between the two. You may not be understood by him. He may not be understood by you. There will be a lack of achievement...... That is why familiarity with the teacher, familiarity with the way of his expressing, what he says when he says something, what he means when he says something; that is why nearness to the teacher is necessary. You have been exposed to a phraseology with which you were not familiar. And once you hear Acharya Rajneesh a few times, you will know what he means. So it is exposing yourself to familiar expression.


(source:CD-ROM)


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