Learning
Beds are areas of rest and this ancient symbol is often associated with happiness and intimacy.
Total relaxation is the ultimate. That’s the moment when one becomes a buddha. That is the moment of realization, enlightenment, christ-consciousness. You cannot be totally relaxed right now. At the innermost core a tension will persist.
But start relaxing. Start from the circumference – that’s where we are, and we can start only from where we are. Relax the circumference of your being – relax your body, relax your behavior, relax your acts. Don’t be in a hurry and don’t be in haste. Move as if all eternity is available to you – in fact, it is available to you.
Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe. Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife – afraid tomorrow you will not be able to face the reality, so be prepared. Tension means the past that you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a hangover, it surrounds you.
Your whole past hangs around you with nothing completed – because nothing has been lived really, everything somehow bypassed, partially lived, only so-so, in a lukewarm way. There has been no intensity, no passion. You have been moving like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker. So that past hangs, and the future creates fear. And between the past and the future is crushed your present, the only reality.
We will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body.
Then take another step, a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, mind also listens, but you cannot start with the mind – you have to start from the beginning. Everything should be done in the right order.
When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions – which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too. Now you can go to the innermost core of your being, which is beyond body, mind, heart: the very center of your existence. And you will be able to relax it too.
And that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy, acceptance. You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it.
Yes, relaxation is one of the most complex phenomena – very rich, multidimensional. All these things are part of it: let-go, trust, surrender, love, acceptance, going with the flow, union with existence, egolessness, ecstasy. All these are part of it, and all these start happening if you learn the ways of relaxation.
Hell is when we are all tense, and heaven is when we are all relaxed. Total relaxation is paradise.
Learning from Bed: Relax
