Friday, June 09, 2006

You are already there

You are already there

Whatever you do in the pursuit of truth or reality takes you away from your own very natural state in which you always are. It's not something you can acquire, attain or accomplish as a result of your effort. All that you do makes it impossible for what already is there to express itself. That is why I call this your natural state. You're always in that state (if your self or your ego is not there to prevent it). What prevents what is there from expressing itself in its own way is the search. The search is always in the wrong direction, so all that you consider very profound, all that you consider sacred, is a contamination in that consciousness. You may not like the word contamination but all that you consider sacred, holy and profound is a contamination. There's nothing that you can do, it's not in your hands. This is something which I can't give because you have it. It is ridiculous to ask for a thing which you already have. There isn't anything to get from anybody. You have what I have. I say you are there.

You see, I maintain that -- I don't know, whatever you call this, I don't like to use the words 'enlightenment', 'freedom', 'moksha' or 'liberation', ‘saved’; all these words are loaded words, they have a connotation of their own -- this cannot be brought about through any effort of yours, it just happens. It happened to me, in my thirty eighth year. And why it happens to one individual and not another, I don't know. That is why I use the word 'acausal'. It has no cause, but somehow the search comes to an end. The search takes you away from yourself -- it is in the opposite direction -- it has absolutely no relation. So, there's nothing that you can do. It's not in your hands. I don't like to use the word 'grace', because if you use the word 'grace', the grace of whom? You are not a specially chosen individual -- you deserve this, I don't know why. If it were possible for me, I would be able to help somebody. But why should I even attempt to give it to you? Other than pointing out certain things I see, I risk becoming another hypocritical spiritual guru or religious leader of some kind.

What happened to me was acausal; it just happened. In spite of all my efforts, struggles, and intentions, this thing happened to me, and that is the miracle of miracles. You cannot make this happen. It is not subject to duplication because when it hits you, it hits you at a time and place never before touched by life. It is not an experience at all, and, therefore, cannot be communicated or transmitted. It is not something you share. It is a rare bird, that's all. All you can do is to put it in a museum and look at it, but you can never duplicate or share it. The closes thing to describing this state of mind (and this may sound a bit odd, so go with me on this) is to picture yourself having been killed in some accident five minutes ago, and now you are gone. All of your greed, your motives, your selfish ambitions, your manipulation of others, your dishonesty, your resentments, everything has gone. Now can you walk in this nothingness, being nothing (no-thing), and simply walk in this death?—So now life and death walk together, like two hands put together in prayer, one being death and the other being life. This is the only means of coming into what you actually are, which is absolute goodness and love, with a righteousness that is nameless and timeless. But the moment you try to achieve this state, the moment there is an effort to acquire, to obtain, you are finished, and right back into yourself again.

So, each individual has now the responsibility, not any particular nation -- India or America or Russia. You see, the individual has to find out his answers for the questions. That is why every individual is the savior of mankind, not collectively. If he can find out an answer for his question, or a solution for his problems, maybe there is some kind of a hope for mankind as a whole -- because we all are brought together: whatever is happening in America is affecting us. Whatever is happening here is affecting the other nations too. You see, the whole world is now thinking in terms of one world, at least theoretically, but nobody is ready to give up the sovereignty of his nation. That is really the crux of the problem. The European Economic Community -- they have joined together only for economic reasons, and not for any other reason. The world is now basically flat when it comes to economics, but no one seems to care about ecology or the true state of mankind, we’re all content just to be hypocrites and to pander the nonsense of our conditioned minds---whatever that happens to be.

In the church they give wine and bread -- what does it actually mean? You see, they have copied it from the days of the savages -- when a hero died there, they ate his flesh and drank his blood hoping that they would acquire the great traits of the hero. So, that is passed on from generation to generation. We are carrying on, not knowing, all those silly things that are going on. I'm not blaming, you see, but what is the heritage you are talking about: Can it really solve the economic and social problems of the world? Can it end the selfish, greedy, and dishonest manner in which each one of us operates? The so-called Christians believe in the latest fade that it does not matter what they do. They believe that, through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, they have already become righteous and that nothing you could do will make you more or less righteous in God’s eyes. Look at what kind of society this is producing. How has this belief given you freedom for sorrow and fear? The Christians also believe that the end of the world is near as they have preached nonstop for hundreds of years, so what difference does anything we do make anyhow? This is the real tragedy of this belief system and the illusions of each individual that is caught up in it and their collective effect on the rest of mankind. How much energy and time has gone into debating this nonsense?! Even the so-called recovery programs, the Twelve Step Programs, are in the same boat. Look at all the hypocrisy that exist with the individuals in these programs. Having been through all of this nonsense myself, I have come to the realization that this group therapy is just another form of escaping from myself, and in the long run this kind of group therapy is not the answer. Even the Boy Scouts, which I was deeply involved with all of my young adult life, and the Girl Scouts, have both been overrun by corruption and have lost so much of their meaning. And even education and the accumulation of knowledge (and I have a degree in Architecture and graduated at the top of my class and there is few subjects that I have not studied) is not going to change us. In fact, knowledge, if not put into its proper place in the mind, can be a hindrance to this state of mind that is absolutely and unconditionally free.

The political problems and the economic problems in this country go together, and they are all tied into organized religious belief systems. You can't separate them; they are all one. It is all one integrated unity. Why do you separate these things? The constitution says that there should be separation of established religion from the state, but this has even lost its meaning in our country. And even if we are successful in this separation, it is all an illusion, because the people that are officers of the state are often believers of established religion. So this separation on this level, which no longer exist anyway, has no meaning. Even our so-called justice system is a sham. The fact is we arrest people that are innocent and then our system convicts them! (laugh) And we are not talking abut a few, we are talking about over one hundred thousand human beings that are locked away in cages with no hope at all, and they are completely innocent. What kind of justice is that? There is no crime more heinous than putting an innocent human being in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Is it possible for you to change the country without a political revolution? Not at all possible. And political revolution is not at all possible in this country, because our constitution says that change, if there is to be any change, should be within the framework of your constitution. But, as I just pointed out, the constitution has lost its meaning in this country, even in the courts. That finishes the possibility of any rebellion against the government that is in power. So how do you expect to change that? This country is not the only culprit...all the western world is to blame...Germany, Spain, France, the entire United Kingdom...they started all of this nonsense...and then we came here to get away from all of it and then we brought our conditioned minds with all the traditional crap and we started the same shit here...


To get elected as President, you have to have millions and millions of dollars (and be dishonest) -- so, once you have spent millions of dollars, you have to make money there. They are not there to serve the country -- not at all -- so don't blame them. I say all these social problems have to be handled by the government, but it must be a good government; there is no room for any private charity anywhere in this world and if we investigate any charity it almost always turns out to be some kind of sham. But the government is not doing its duty and they are a bunch of self-centered uncaring liars, yet we still put our faith in them! Why? If the government does not do its duty, throw the government out! Make them do it. So, if they don't do it, you are responsible for it. Why blame the politicians? Blame yourself. Rich people, you see -- "I want my five acres or five hundred acres of land to be assured or I want my life style to impress others, even if I live in misery." Nobody, no party, can solve the problems of America or any other country; God alone, if there is a God, and even then only if He can. He is singularly incapable of solving the problems of America or the world for that matter. It is not a pessimistic evaluation of the problems of the world, but I don't see how it is possible. I don't see any hope for this world as it is going or for this great country we call America. I want this country to play a very important role in the affairs of the world, but not in the name of some pompous religious beliefs or this bizarre heritage based on unhealthy conditioning. I would be most enchanted if America could play an important part. Even God cannot do it. The all- powerful, almighty God, if there is one -- I don't know if there is any such tangible being -- if he can't do it, what can I and you do? So, I think that one day we will realize that the energy is in each one of us... You see, the people are so weak, Sir, they don't blow up the whole thing. The people live in fear of standing up for what they really believe. If the whole thing is blown up and people were not in fear of standing tough for what they believe (and when I say “blown up” I don’t mean through any form of this violent nonsense), probably there is some chance... You see, the problem of this country is that America got her freedom from brave people that worked so hard and fought for their freedom, died for freedom – But those people no longer exist in large numbers because the people live in this fear and are afraid of their government-- that's really the problem. They say don't stand up to them or you will become their target. It was a pity that we had to fight so hard for our freedom, only for us to give it away; if the Europeans had not imposed their ideas on us through our conditioned minds when all of us came over here and we had followed the true intentions of Columbus and then later our founding fathers, it would have been a different country. If some 500,000 people or more would stand together for the truth, we could bring about change and make this country and this world a better place. But the times don't seem to be ripe for that kind of a thing. You see, unless that kind of a thing happens in America, there is no chance, there is no hope. Now the people in this country are saying, “Give me liberty, or give me…well let me think about it…”

So, probably there is again a need for another teacher -- who knows? -- if there is there is some intelligent energy around the corner-- I don't know. Even the spiritual people we have in our midst seem unable to perform this miracle which is necessary to save this country and the world. Man has to be saved from God -- that is very essential because...I mean all that 'God' stands for, not only God, but all that is associated with that concept of God -- even karma, heaven and hell, rebirth, reincarnation, life after death, the whole thing, the whole business of what we might call the "great heritage of religious tradition" -- all that, you see. Man has to be saved from the heritage of religion. Not only the people; the country has to be saved from that heritage. (Not by revolution, not the way they have done it in the communist countries -- that's not the way. I don't know why; you see, this is a very tricky subject.) Otherwise there is no hope for the individual and no hope for the country. Not that he should become anti-God or an atheist. To me, the theist (the believer in God), the non-believer in God or any outside energy, and the one that comes in between and calls himself an "agnostic" -- all of them are in the same boat. I personally feel that there is no power outside of man, you see -- no power outside of man. If there is some natural energy from the cosmos it operates naturally inside man, and inside anything else it operates on. The Blue Herring that so patiently waits for that fish and then so eloquently spears it with its beak and throws it into the air and catches it in its mouth, has no concept of some outside energy. Whatever power is out there is inside man. So, if that is the case -- and that is a fact to me -- there is no point in externalizing that power and creating some symbol and worshipping it, you know? So that's why I say that God, the question of God, is irrelevant to man today. I don't know if I make myself clear. It's not that you should burn all the religious books and tear down all the temples. That is too silly, too ridiculous, because what temples and religious books stand for is in the man, uh? -- it is not outside. So there's no point in burning all those libraries and making a bonfire of all the religious books the way the crusaders did -- that is too silly; that is not the way to do it, you see. So, that's why I say God is irrelevant -- because man has to rely more and more on his own resources. The heritage you are talking about has produced this man here today, all that is there in him. So, not what is there in the Bible – or as in other parts of the world it is the Koran or the Upanishads, or the Bhagata Gita and so on, not what... all those teachers -- what they thought and what they experienced is part of this man. So, that has to express itself in a new form, which is from this selfless intelligence with its natural compassion and love. If you talk of God it has no meaning at all; everybody becomes a believer in God or a non-believer in God and ends up fighting on the battlefield. What is the point in their reviving Islam? What is the Islam all these people are talking about? What is the point of reviving Christianity? There are over two hundred and fifty sects of organized Christianity, and each is in some kind of conflict with the other. And they're quarrelling amongst themselves, the subdivisions, just the way the Indians in the East are fighting among themselves, the small religions. So, that is why I say God is irrelevant to man in the modern context. What 'God' stands for is already there in man and woman -- the energy is there in each one of us -- there is no tangible power outside of man – there is this unknown energy--maybe of the cosmos--now that some 96% of the cosmos is a mystery to the scientist -- and that has to express itself in its own way. You see, Darwin's theory, as it stands alone, is not to be considered at all if we do not place the observation of some unknown natural energy at work – His basic statements in relationship to whether or not there is an outside energy involved in this process is the subject of much debate. Maybe there is something to evolution in terms of natural selection-- maybe -- but what exactly do we mean by "evolution?" Obviously there have been changes in organism over periods of time, but scientists are so quick (and so rooted in their ambitions) to come to a conclusion. Every thing that man has studied, religion, science, evolution, the universe, physics, history, everything...he always comes to a conclusion, and then he finds out one day that his conclusion was wrong. You see, the simple things become complex, hm? Man has become such a complex individual today that he has to move in the opposite direction. I don't mean, by saying "in the opposite direction," that we have to advocate involution. We just need to slow down and to reflect on what we have become in millions of years. You see, there is no question of going back and starting with the year number one; man has to start where he stands today. But I maintain that man has no freedom of action. I don't mean the fatalism that the organized religions have practiced and still are practicing: when I say that man has no freedom of action it is in relation to changing himself, to freeing himself from the burden of the past, yet, at the same time, learning from the past. It is this understanding of our past and the futility of these traditions which are the product of our past that will allow for an intelligence that goes beyond our past.

What is necessary is that the individual should free himself from the burden of the past, the so-called great heritage we are talking about. Unless the individual frees himself from the burden of the past, he cannot come up with new solutions for the problems; he repeats the same old nonsense... So it is up to the individual. He has to free himself from the entire past, the heritage which we are talking about -- that is to say he has to break away from the cumulative beliefs of the ages -- only then is it possible for him to come out with the solutions for the problems with which man is confronted by today. That is not in his hands; there is nothing that he can do to free himself from the burden of the past. It is in that sense that I say he has no freedom of action. You have freedom to come here or not to come here, to study or teach economics or philosophy or something else -- there you have a limited freedom. But you have no freedom to control the events of the world or shape the events of the world -- nobody should have that power, no nation should have that power. The very illusion that our country has that power and these extraordinary politicians that are imposing that power are going to destroy all of mankind and this marvelous planet we call Earth. You know that most of the smaller countries are helpless. America -- even America, the mightiest, the strongest, the richest and the most powerful nation -- it has been; it is not now. Even Time magazine does not use those phrases any more to describe America. We are hated by so many, and for good reason. If even such countries as Russia and America are not able to control, much less shape, the events of the world, what can the smaller and all the poor countries do? Not a chance.

So the individual is the only hope. And the individual also seems to be totally helpless because he has to free himself from the burden of the past, the entire heritage, not only of a specific religion here in this country, but of the whole world. This energy behind all creation is to vast to fit into any one box called religion.

So is it possible for man to free himself from the burden? Individually, he doesn't seem to have any freedom at all. You see, he has no freedom of action -- that is the crux of the whole problem. But yet the hope is in the individual -- if through some luck, some strange chance... That makes the God we are talking about irrelevant -- God in the sense of this tangeble entity in which you use the word. There is no power outside of man. That power is unable to express itself, because of the burden of the past; when once he is freed from the burden of the past, then what is there, that extraordinary power of this mind, expresses itself. In that sense there's no contradiction. He stops trying to control and shape events, he sails along with events, but, at the same time, he refuses to be a part of any corruption or dishonesty. You and I are not called upon to save the world. Who has given us the mandate? The world has gone on for centuries. So many people have come and gone. It is going on in its own way. So he is freed from all the problems -- not only his problems, but also the problems of the world. And if that individual somehow has an impact, it has an impact; and if it hasn't... We must act without regard to whether or not we will have an impact or not...It is something which cannot be measured, you see. The thing that is important is to act without any desire for this result or that result, or to win or to lose, but just to live without any fear of being who you are, without any image of yourself or any image of others. I want to relate to you for what you are, not through some image that I have formed of you and it would be nice if you did the same for me...

You see, the animal becomes a flower of goodness. That seems to be the purpose -- if at all there is any purpose in Nature, I don't know. You see, there are so many flowers there -- look at them! Each flower is unique in its own way. Nature's purpose seems to be (I cannot make any definitive statement) to create flowers like that, human flowers like that. We have only a handful of flowers, which you can count on your fingers. I’m not going to name them, because there in different walks of life, but there are so few flowers of goodness that just refuse to be hypocritical and that refuse to go along with or put up with any form of dishonesty.

Man becomes man for the first time (and when I say ‘man’, I’m talking about all of mankind, which includes woman of course) -- and that is possible only when he frees himself from the burden of the heritage we are talking about, the heritage of man as a whole (not East and West; there is no East and West). Then only does he become an individual. For the first time he becomes an individual -- that is the individual I am talking about. That individual will certainly have an impact on human consciousness, because when something happens in this consciousness of man it affects the whole, to a very microscopic extent maybe. So, this is a simile: when you throw a stone in a pool, it sets in motion circular waves. In exactly the same way we each affect the rest of mankind, it is very slow, very, very slow-- it is something which cannot be measured with anything. So, maybe that's the only hope that man has -- that's the first time such an individual becomes a man -- otherwise he's an animal. And he has remained an animal, a very ignorant animal, because of the heritage, because the heritage has made it possible, from the point of view of Nature, for the unfit to remain; otherwise Nature would have rejected them a long time ago. It has become possible for the unfit to survive -- not the survival of the fittest , but of those unfit to survive -- and both belief and disbelief is responsible for that. That's my argument. You may not agree. You won't agree. He's not a perfect man, he's not an ideal man -- he cannot be a model for others. He's an individual. He becomes the man, freed from all the animal traits in him. You see, animals follow, animals create leaders, and the animal traits are still persisting there in man -- that is why he creates a leader, the top-dog, and follows.

You become yourself. You see, the shock that your dependence on the entire heritage of mankind has been wrong--that all of the religions of the world have be created, invented by thought--and that God, this tangible God of the organized religions, has be created by thought -- the realization that dawns on you hits you like lightning -- that your dependence on this culture, be it oriental or occidental or whatever, has been responsible for this situation in you. That applies to the whole as well, because all of our society, the nation, is the extension of the individual, and the world is the extension of the different nations. What you are is the rest of mankind.

So you are freed from the burden of the past and become, for the first time, an individual. There is no relationship between these two flowers at all, so there is no point in comparing and contrasting the unique flowers, individuals of absolute goodness and love, that Nature has thrown up from time to time. They, in their own ways, have had some impact, although the whole thing resulted in some tiny colonies fighting amongst themselves and wanting to destroy the other, that's all. It goes on and on and on.

Who is called upon to save this world? No one can save the world. But each flower has its own fragrance, but how few there are that live life, the art of living, having come to understand the true nature of man. Look at what we have done with sex. My God! That is a subject that needs to be explored. Sex has its place when it is neither a pure thing, nor an impure thing. But our culture has made it into something to avoid and into some strange form of some kind of sacred act on the one hand and a demented act on the other. Sex and Christianity never have been good frineds. We deny it on the one hand and then we are eaten up with it on the other. How few of us are able to come to the natural and realistic terms of sex and to be abolutely honest and open about this subject and the problems that accompany it! Like everything else, our haritage has made sex, something so natural and beautiful, into such a terrible problem. When we come to understand the illusions of our conditioned beliefs and come to understand who we are as an individual, we no longer seek escape from ourselves through pleasure, and then the pleasure and the beauty of sex, and its problems, are properly confronted and then sex has its proper place.

If it had not been for the heritage of man, the conditioning of man, and our beliefs, which we are so proud of, we would have had so many flowers like this. So it has destroyed what Nature intended...(It's not that I am interpreting or understanding Nature's ways, the purpose of evolution, or any such thing; there are obviosly changes in organisms and mutaitions over long periods of geological time, but we much question ‘evolution’ as the scientest sees it and we must question the conclusions that are often drawn from science, just as we must question everything.) If it had not been for the culture, conditioning, Nature would have thrown up many more flowers -- so this has become a stumbling block to the individual freeing himself in his own way. What is responsible for his difficulty is this thing, you see, the culture. So, that flower -- what value has that flower to mankind? What value has it? You can look at it, admire it, write a piece of poetry, paint it, or you can crush it and throw it away by putting it in a cage -- but still it is there. It may be of no use to the society at all, but it is there.

If it had not been for the culture, these belief systems based on the many illusions, the world would have produced more flowers, different kinds and different varieties of flowers, not only the one rose that you are so proud of and that you have added so many illusions to. You want to turn everything into one model. What for? Whereas nature would have thrown up, from time to time, different flowers, unique each in its own way, beautiful each in its own way. That possibility has been destroyed by this culture, which has a stranglehold on man, which prevents him from freeing himself from the burden of the entire past. It is only in this insight that he ceases to be somebody else; he is what he is. This shock, this lightning, hitting me with the greatest force, shattered everything, blasted every cell and gland in my body -- the whole chemistry seems to have changed. The brain cell seem to have mutated and order brought to them. There's no scientific evidence or medical man to certify that, but I'm not interested in satisfying anyone's curiosity, because I am not selling this, I am not collecting followers and teaching them how to bring about this change. It's something which you cannot bring about through any volition or effort of yours; it just happens. I say it is acausal. What its purpose is, I really don't know, but it is something, you see. The outcome is goodness and love—a love that is not possessive—yet it can be possessed and manipulated and even destroyed by those that don’t understand it and that are rooted in their haritage, in their bizarre beliefs with all the confusion and hypocracy. They are allways destroying what they don't understand. Those with insight have always been destroyed by those with mediocre minds.

The whole chemistry of the body changes, so it begins to function in its own natural way. That means everything that is poisoned (I deliberately use that word) and contaminated by the culture is thrown out of the system (and it is important to understand if you are a liar and don’t simply stop telling lies by facing the fact that you are a liar you will never touch this). It is thrown out of your system, and then that consciousness or life (or whatever you want to call it) expresses itself and functions in a very natural way. The whole thing has to be thrown out of your system; otherwise, if you don't believe in God, you become an atheist and you teach, preach and proselytize atheism. But this individual is neither a theist, nor an atheist, nor an agnostic; he is what he is. If anything he may be called a deist, only because he has an awareness of some unknown and mysterious natural cosmic energy behind all creation, which he may chose to call God as a referance to this energy, but this is not your paculiar version of god, which is nothing more than an illusion that man has created. The movement that has been created by the heritage of man, which is trying to make you into something different from what you are, comes to an end, and so what you are begins to express itself, that's all, in its own way, unhindered, unhandicapped, unburdened by the past of man, mankind as a whole. So such a man is of no use to the society through the eyes of society and society may want to get rit of him because he becomes a threat to the avery neurosis in that society. He doesn't think that he is chosen, chosen by some power to reform the world. He doesn't think that he is a saviour or a free man or an enlightened man. So, the moment the followers fit him into the tradition, there arises a need for somebody else to break away from that tradition --that is all. I don't care what Krishnamurti said, or what all the philosophers said, or what Buddha said, or what Christ said. It has gone out of my system; not that I have thrown it out or any such thing. It has just gone out of my entire system. So whatever I say stands or falls by itself; it doesn't need the support of any authority of any kind. That is why such a man is a threat to the corruption and the neurosis of society, and to society in general, with it's authority of power and control, which is violence. He's a threat to the tradition because he's undermining the whole foundation of the heritage.

The beauty of this insight is that when one observes the media and the news of all the violence in the world, one simply understands the cause of it all. If we could all see this simple thing that these organzed reliligions, our beliefs and disbeliefs, are a product of our conditioned minds and are the cause of most of our wars and most of the confusion and contradiction in our social structure and the cause of so much violence and wrong doing---If we could see this simple thing there would be right action, and we could have a far more sane and rational and peaceful world to live on.

If you have no love—do what you will, go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the political or judicial systems, enter politics, write books, write poems—you are a dead human being. Without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly. And with love, do what you will, there may be risk, but there is no psychological conflict or pain. Then love is the essence of virtue.

_________________Thought has created, invented all the religions throughout the world.