Meditation And Techniques

THIS SUTRA SAYS ALL DOINGS ON OUR PART WILL CREATE MORE PROBLEMS, AND WE SHOULD WATCH AND WAIT AND RELAX AND LET THINGS SETTLE BY THEMSELVES.

THEN HOW IS IT THAT YOGA IS FULL OF HUNDREDS OF TECHNIQUES AND EXERCISES?

Because of you! It is not because of Patanjali, it is because of you. You cannot believe that the ultimate can’t happen to you without any doing on your part – you cannot believe! You need something to do. Just like children need toys to play with, you need techniques to play with. And because you cannot believe that God is so easy and so immediately possible, techniques have to be devised. Those techniques will not lead you to God. Those techniques will not help you to reach the ultimate. Then what will they do? – They will simply show your foolishness to you and one day, suddenly realizing what you are doing, techniques drop, and God is there. God has always been there. It is because of you; you demand.

People go to Master, and if he says to them that there is no need to do anything, they say, “Still… something. At least some mantra you can give so we can chant it.” They say, “Just sitting silently is impossible – we have to do something.” So what to do with these people? If he says to them, “Sit silently,” they cannot sit. Then something arbitrary has to be devised. He gives them something to do.

Doing it, at least they will be occupied for a few hours. They will be sitting doing Ram, Ram, Ram. At least by the help of this mantra, they will not do any harm to anybody. They will be sitting; they cannot do harm. And doing this Ram, Ram, Ram continuously, some day they will realize what they are doing.

One Zen Master went to his disciple. The disciple was a real authentic seeker, and he was continuously doing meditation and he has attained to the last point where meditation has to be dropped. All techniques have to be dropped. They are just toys, because you cannot be without toys. They are supplied in the hope that someday you will realize they are just toys. You yourself will throw them and sit silently.

The Master went because now the right moment has arrived, and the disciple still goes on continuing his chanting of the mantra. He has become addicted. Now he is obsessed. He could not leave it. It is just like sometimes you find a certain line of a song goes on and on in the mind. Even if you want to drop it, you cannot drop. It haunts inside; again and again it comes. This is nothing you don’t know. When a person does a mantra for years, it is almost impossible to drop it – it becomes his very marrow – he cannot even sleep. While he is asleep his lips you can watch; doing Ram, Ram, Ram. It becomes an undercurrent. It is a toy of course, a teddy bear, but becomes so much closer that the child cannot go to sleep without it.

The Master went and just sat before the disciple, and he was sitting Buddha-like, doing his mantra. The Master took a brick with him and started rubbing the brick on a stone: grrr, grrr, grrr. He went on and on just like a mantra. First the disciple resisted the temptation to look at who is doing this disturbance, but then he went on and on; hours passed. The disciple opened his eyes and said, “What are you doing?” The Master says, “I am trying to polish this brick, to make a mirror out of it.” The disciple said, “You are stupid. I never thought that you, a man who has a reputation of being enlightened, should do such a foolish thing. The brick will never become a mirror, howsoever hard you may rub it on the stone. It may disappear completely, but it will not become a mirror. You stop this nonsense!” The Master laughed and said, “You also stop, because howsoever you rub the brick of the mind, it will never become the innermost self. It may get polished and polished and polished, but still it will not become your inner reality.”

Mind has to be dropped. Meditation and techniques are a trick to help that dropping, and then meditation also has to be dropped. Otherwise, that becomes your mind. It is just like there is a thorn in your feet, and you get another thorn to take the first thorn out of your feet. The second thorn helps, but the second thorn is as much a thorn as the first. The second is not a flower. And when the first has been taken out by the help of the second, what will you do? Will you put the second in the wound because this helped so much and this thorn was so great you have to worship it? Will you worship the second thorn? No, you will throw them both together.

This has to be remembered: mind is a thorn; all techniques are thorns to bring the first thorn out. Meditation is also a thorn. When the first thorn is out, then both have to be thrown together. Even if for a single moment you miss, then the second thorn will be in the place of the first thorn, and you will be in the same trouble.

That’s why a Master is needed who can tell you, “Now is the right moment. Drop this meditation and this foolish business.” Unless meditation disappears, meditation has not been attained. When meditation becomes useless, only then for the first time you have become a meditator. Techniques have been invented for you because you already had a thorn. Already the thorn is there. Some device is needed to bring it out. But always remember, never forget: the second thorn is as much a thorn as the first, and both have to be thrown.

That’s why so much importance is given to a Master and to live with a Master, because you will not be able to know. When the mind drops, immediately the meditation becomes the mind and you are again occupied. In an unoccupied state when there is neither the mind nor meditation, in that total unoccupied state of mind, the ultimate happens – never before.

It happened that a great Zen Master, before he was enlightened and has not become a Zen Master and was seeking and searching, went to his Master, and the Master was always saying to people, “Meditate more, meditate more.” Whosoever will come will get the same advice, “Meditate more, bring more energy to it.” So this disciple has done whatsoever he could do. He was really doing meditation as totally as a human being can do. He went to see the Master; the Master shrugged his shoulders seeing him, his face was not happy. The disciple asked, “What is the matter? If you say to do more, I will try. But why are you so sad looking at me? Do you feel I am a hopeless case?” The Master says, “No, just the reverse – you are doing too much. Do a little less. You are altogether too filled with meditation and Zen. Just a little less will do.”

One can be obsessed with meditation, and obsession is the problem. You were obsessed with money, now you are obsessed with meditation. Money is not the problem, obsession is the problem. You were obsessed with the market, now you are obsessed with God. Market is not the problem… obsession. One should be loose and natural and not obsessed with anything neither mind nor meditation. Only then, unoccupied unobsessed, when you are simply flowing, the ultimate happens to you.