Reason Is A Lie

I have heard a very famous story of when Queen Marie visited America and asked to meet a most famous psychiatrist.

The nurse ushered in Queen Marie and said to the psychiatrist, “I would like you to meet the Queen of Romania.”

The psychiatrist looked at the queen and asked, “How long does she think she has been a queen?”

Because a psychiatrist is always treating people of whom somebody thinks he is an Alexander, somebody thinks he is a Genghis Khan, somebody thinks he is Hitler, somebody thinks she is Cleopatra. So of course he couldn’t think that Queen Marie, Queen of Romania, herself had come. He thought, “Must be some other woman gone crazy. How long does she think she has been a queen?”

Another story I have heard:

A patient was brought to a psychiatrist by friends, who told the doctor that the man was suffering from delusions that an enormous fortune was awaiting him. He was expecting two letters which would give him full details involving a rubber plantation in Sumatra and titles to some mines in South Africa.

“It was a difficult case and I worked hard on it,” the psychiatrist told some of his colleagues, “and just when I had the man cured, the two letters arrived.”

Be alert. Those two letters may be really coming.

And don’t be afraid. The fear arises because whenever you start walking alone the fear arises. One feels insecure. The doubt arises, “Am I right?” because the whole crowd is going in one direction; you start walking alone. With the crowd the doubt never arises because you think, “Millions of people are going in this direction; there must be something in it, has to be.” The crowd mind prevails over you, the collective mind prevails over you. So many people cannot be wrong, must be right.

I have heard about one psychoanalyst who went on a picnic. They were trying to find the right spot; then one member of the group told them to come. “This is a beautiful place,” he said, “the right spot. Big trees, shade, the river flowing by, and absolutely silent.”

The psychiatrist said, “Yes, ten million ants can’t be wrong.”

Ten million ants can’t be wrong. Ants gather together wherever there is a picnic spot – flies and ants. That is our inner mathematics, that so many people, then they cannot be wrong. Alone-one feels dizzy. With the crowd, people all around – this side, that side, in front, in back – a whole ocean of people, one feels perfectly right. So many people are going: they must be going in the right direction. And everybody is thinking the same.

Nobody knows where they are going. They are just going because the whole crowd is going. And if you ask everybody individually, “Are you going in the right direction?” he will say, “I don’t know. Because the whole world is going, so I am going.”

My whole effort here is to bring you out of the collective mind, to help make you an individual. In the beginning you will have to face chaos. And great trust will be needed, tremendous trust will be needed. Otherwise you can get out of the collective mind and you may not get into the individual mind; then you will be mad. That’s the risk. Without trust, moving into meditation is risky. I will not tell you to move into it; I will tell you it is better to remain normal, whatsoever normality means. Remain adjusted with the society. But if you are really ready to go on a great adventure, the greatest, then trust.

And then wait for chaos.

The more aware you become, the less, of course, you are conscious of it. Because there is no need. Awareness is enough. Consciousness of awareness will be a strain. In the beginning it is so. You start learning to drive a car. Of course you are in much trouble; you have to manage so many things – the wheel, the gear, the clutch, the accelerator, the brake, the road, and if you have a wife sitting at the back…. One has to be very, very conscious because so many things have to be managed together. It seems almost impossible in the beginning. By and by everything drops; you simply go on driving. You can talk to a friend, you can listen to the radio, you can sing a song, or you can meditate, and then there is no problem. Now driving has become a spontaneous thing. You know it, so there is no need to be self-conscious about it.

The same happens when you meditate. In the beginning you have to be conscious about consciousness. It brings a strain, a tiredness. By and by, as consciousness grows, there is no need to be conscious about it. It goes on flowing on its own, like breathing. You need not be conscious about it; it goes on its own. In fact, at the later stages of meditation, if you are concerned too much about your awareness, that will be a disturbance; just as, if you become conscious of your breathing, you will immediately disturb its natural rhythm.

It flows naturally; there is no need for you to come in.

And awareness has to become so natural…. Only then is it possible: even while you are asleep, the light of awareness continues burning, the flame remains – even while you are fast asleep.

And the last thing about the question: “Immense trust in you is there in the face of this loss of rational understanding.” Rational understanding is not understanding at all. It is a misnomer. Through reason one never understands anything. One simply comes to feel that one understands. Reason is a lie. It gives you a false feeling, “Yes, you have understood.”

Only through experiences does one understand; only through existential experience is understanding possible.

For example, if I talk about love, you can understand it rationally, because you know the language, you know the semantics, you know the meaning of the words, you know the construction of the sentences, and you have been trained, so you can understand what I am saying; but your understanding will be “about” love. It will not be exactly the understanding of love. It will be “about” love; it will not be direct. And howsoever you go on collecting facts and information about love, you will never be able to know what love is only through this accumulation. You will have to move into love, you will have to taste it, to dissolve into it, to dare; only then.

Rational understanding is just a very superficial understanding. Become more existential.

If you want to know about love, it is better to go into love rather than going into the library and consulting what others have said about love. If you want to meditate, rather than going into the books and learning what meditation is all about, go directly into meditation. Feel it, enjoy it, enter into it, allow it to happen around you, allow it to happen within you; then you will know.

How can you know what dancing is without dancing? It is impossible to know from the books, and it is even difficult to know seeing a dancer dance. Then too it is not knowing, because you see the outer form of it, just the movements of the body. You don’t know what is happening inside the dancer, what harmony is arising in him, what consciousness, what awareness is arising in him, what crystallization, what centering. You cannot see it, you cannot infer it. From the outside it is not available, and you cannot enter into the inner world of the dancer. The only way to enter there is to become a dancer.

All that is beautiful, deep, and great has to be lived.

Trust is one of the greatest things in life. Greater than love, because love knows of hate.

Trust does not know anything about it. Love is still a duality. The hate part remains hidden; it has not been dropped. You can lute your lover within a second. Anything can cause it, and the hate part comes up and the love part goes down. In love it is only half what you call love; just beneath the surface the hate is always waiting to jump over and possess you. And it possesses you. Lovers go on fighting, continuous conflict. Somebody has written a book about love. The title is beautiful: THE INTIMATE ENEMY. Lovers are enemies also.

But trust is higher than love; it is nondual. It knows no hate. It knows no polarity, no opposite. It simply is one. It is the purest love – love purified of hate, love which has dropped the hate part completely, love which cannot turn into a sour experience, bitter experience, love which has become almost unearthly, other-worldly.

So only those who love can trust. If you want to avoid love, and trust, your trust will be of a very lower, status because it will continue to have the hate part. You have to move your energy first through love so you can become aware of the hate-and-love duality.

Then is the frustration that comes out of the hate part, then an understanding through experience, and then you drop the hate part. Then pure love, the very essence, survives.

Even the flower is not there, only the fragrance; then you rise into trust.

Of course it has nothing to do with rational understanding. In fact the more rational understanding disappears, the more trust will arise. Trust is in a way blind; in a way trust is the only clarity of vision there is. If you think from reason, trust will look blind.

Rationalists will always call trust blind. If you look through the experience of trust, you will laugh; you will say, “I have got my eyes for the first time.” Then trust is the only clarity there is. The vision is so clear, without any cloud of anger and hate, so transparent.