VBT – Meditation 71.3
Natural And Simple
What I call meditation is a process of Sahaja Yoga. You accept all that happens to you; you let go of yourself completely and accept all that happens on its own. Otherwise it would be unthinkable that educated and cultured people, people who are affluent and sophisticated go crying and yelling, hopping and jumping and wildly dancing like crazy people. This is not an ordinary thing. This is something extraordinary and invaluable too.
That is why the spectator is bewildered and he doesn’t understand what it is all about. He feels bemused and then he laughs at the whole thing. But he is not aware that if he were to join you, he would go through the same bizarre experiences. Or maybe his laughter is just a defence measure. He laughs only to protect himself, he means to say through his laughter that he won’t do what you are doing; it is not for him. That is what he thinks, but his laughter on its part says something else. It says that he too has something to do with it. His laughter says that in a way he is really concerned with it. His ridicule indicates that if he were to participate in what is happening here he would do the same. He too has withheld and repressed himself; he too has suppressed his tears and laughters, his dances and his ecstasy.
Bertrand Russell said in his later days that civilisation has robbed man of a few precious things and dance is one of them. He said that he could not think of standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square and dancing, although we claim that we are a free people and that we have more freedom than our ancestors ever had. He also observed that on the one hand it is trumpeted that the world has entered its era of liberty and freedom and on the other he was not free to dance in the marketplace, and if he did so the traffic police would immediately arrest him on the charge of obstructing the traffic! Moreover, he would be thought to be a mental case! Bertrand Russell also recalled that whenever he visited some primitive tribes dancing with abandon under the starry sky he painfully realised that the civilised man had really lost much that was valuable.
Civilisation’s gains are small and its losses are enormous. The civilised man has lost his naturalness and simplicity, he has lost nature itself. And, moreover, he is a victim of all kinds of perversions.
Meditation is a way of making you natural and simple, restoring you to your nature once again.
No ideal from the past can be of any help because nothing can be repeated, and if it is repeated it is meaningless.
Zen monks say to remember and be alert. If you meet Buddha in your meditation, kill him immediately; don’t allow him to stand there. Zen monks are Buddha’s followers, and yet they say kill Buddha immediately if you meet him in your meditation, because the personality, the ideal of Buddha may become so hypnotising that you may forget yourself, and if you forget yourself you have missed the path. Buddha is not the ideal; you are the ideal, your unknown future. That has to be discovered.
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