VBT – Week’s Meditation 112
Abundant Life
When we start practicing Tantra Meditation we naturally have this question – IF ONE FOLLOWS CERTAIN LAWS OF LIFE AND CALLS THIS MORAL, THEN IS THERE ANY OBJECTION FROM A TANTRIC?
Tantra has no objections, but this having no objection is the problem. Tantra has no objection whatsoever; tantra is not in any way condemning. It is not concerned to tell you, “Do this,” or “Don’t do that.” If you feel good, if you feel happy following certain principles, then follow them. But following certain principles can never lead you to happiness because you are not going to change through principles and through following them. You will remain the same.
Principles are always borrowed, ideals are always borrowed. Someone else has given them to you.
They are not your own; they have not grown out of your own experience. They are without roots.
The society, the religion to which you are born, the teachers you happened to be near, they have given them to you. You can follow them and you can force yourself accordingly, but then you will be a dead person – not alive. You may create a certain peace around yourself, but that will be the peace of the cemetery – dead. You may be less vulnerable to disturbances, more closed in because of the principles, but then you will become less sensitive and less alive. So so-called principled men are always dead.
Look at them: they look silent, still, peaceful, at ease, but a certain deadness is always around them.
The aura of death is always there. You cannot feel the feast of life around them, the festivity of being alive, the celebration of being alive. You can never feel that around them. They have created an armor around them – a safety armor. Nothing can penetrate them. The walls of their principles and character stop everything, but then they are behind the walls, imprisoned, and they are their own prisoners. If you choose this, tantra has no objection. You are free to choose a life which is not a life at all.
Once Mulla Nasruddin visited a cemetery, and he saw a very beautiful marble mausoleum. Inscribed on it was the name “Rothschild.” Mulla is reported to have said, “Aha! Ahhh! This is what I call life. This is what I called living – a beautiful marble mausoleum.” But howsoever beautiful it is, it is not life. It is marble – beautiful, rich – but not life. You can create a mausoleum out of your life through principles, ideals, impositions, but then you will be dead, although less vulnerable because death is not vulnerable.
Death is a security; life is always insecure. Anything can happen to a live person; nothing can happen to a dead person. He is secure. There is no future, no possibility for change. The last thing has happened to him – death. Now nothing can happen.
Principled personalities are dead personalities. Tantra is not interested in them. Tantra has no objection – if you feel good being dead, it is your choice. You can commit suicide, and this is a suicide. But tantra is for those who want to be more alive, and the truth, the ultimate, is not death, it is life. Remember that: the ultimate is not death. It is life – more life. Jesus has said, “Abundant life, infinite life.”
So by being dead you can never reach the ultimate. If it is life, and “abundant life,” then by being dead you will never be in contact with it. Just by being more alive, more vulnerable, more sensitive, less principled and more alert, you will reach it. Why do you seek principles? You may not have observed why. It is because with principles you need not be alert. You need not be alert! If you live through principles you need not be alert.
Suppose I make a principle, out of non-violence and then I stick to it, or I make it a principle to be truthful and I stick to it; then it becomes a habit. I create a habit of being truthful, of always speaking the truth. It becomes a mechanical habit; now there is no need to be alert. I cannot speak lies because a principle, a habit, will always create a barrier. The society depends on principles, on inculcating and educating the children with principles. Then they become incapable, really, of being otherwise. If a person becomes incapable, he is dead.
Your truth can be alive only if it comes through alertness, not through principle. Each moment you have to be alert in order to be true. Truth is not a principle; it is something born out of your alertness.
Non-violence is not a principle; if you are alert you cannot be violent. But that is difficult and arduous.
You will have to transform yourself totally. It is easy to create a life according to principles, rules and regulations. Then you need not worry. You need not worry about being more alert and aware; you can follow the principles.
Then you are just like a railway train running on the tracks. Those tracks are your principles. You are not afraid because you cannot miss the path. Really, you don’t have any path; you have just mechanical rails on which your train is running. You will reach the destination, you need not be afraid. You will be asleep and the train will reach. It is running on dead paths; they are not alive.
But tantra says that life is not like that, it is more like a river. It is not running on iron rails, on tracks; really, it is like a river. The path has not even been charted before. As the river flows, the path is created. As the river moves, the path is created. The river will reach to the sea, and this is how life should be if you understand the tantra way.
Life is like a river. There is no precharted way; there are no maps to be given to you which are to be followed. Just be alive and alert, and then wheresoever life leads you go with full confidence in it.
Tantra is a trust – a trust in the life force. Allow it to lead you, don’t force it. Surrender to it and allow it to lead you towards the sea. Just be alert, that is all. While life leads you towards the sea just be alert so that you don’t miss anything.
It is very important to remember that tantra is not simply concerned with the end; it is also concerned with the means. It is also concerned with the path, not only the destination. If you are alert, even this life will be a bliss. The very movement of the river is a bliss in itself. Passing through the valleys, through the rocks, falling down from the hills, moving into the unknown is itself a bliss.
Be alert here also, because the ocean, the ultimate, cannot just be happening in the end. It cannot be. It is a growth. The river is “growing” to be the sea. It is not simply going to meet the sea, it is “growing” to be the sea, and this is possible only through rich experience, alert experiences, moving, trusting. This is how tantra looks at the search – at the human search. Of course, it is dangerous.
If rivers can be run through predetermined paths, there would be less danger, fewer errors. But the whole beauty of aliveness would be lost.
So don’t be a follower of principles. Just be a creator of more and more consciousness. Those principles will happen to you, but you will never feel imprisoned in them.
Tags: Abundant Life
