DELETED TEXT AND CHAPTERS ARE MARKED IN RED AND ADDED TEXT HAS BEEN MARKED IN BLUE

LIFE’S MYSTERIES

Published by Penguin Books India

Sat Chit An and

Chapter #25

Chapter title: Nobody is planning except man

4 December 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

          Archive code:          8712040

          ShortTitle:     CHIT25

          Audio:           Yes

          Video:           Yes

          Length:         73 mins

IS IT POSSIBLE TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED IN A REALLY EASY AND RELAXED WAY, WITH NOT TOO MUCH EFFORT AND LOTS OF NAPS?

Is it possible to become enlightened in a really easy and relaxed way, with not too much effort and lots of naps?

Gayano, y You are asking me, a man who has never done anything. Just through relaxation– ... without any effort and lots of naps! Mostly I am asleep. I just get up to talk to you in the morning, then I go back to sleep; then I get up again in the evening to talk to you and go back to sleep. My total hours of sleep must be eighteen. Six hours I am awake, two hours with you, one hour for my bath, for my food, and the remainder I am in absolute samadhi. And I don't even dream– --so lazy!

And you are asking me the question!. This is my whole philosophy, that you should not make any effort, that you should relax and enlightenment comes. It comes when it finds you are really relaxed, no tension, no effort and immediately it showers on you like thousands of flowers.

But all the religions have been teaching just the opposite, that enlightenment is very arduous, it takes life-long efforts, perhaps many lives, and then too there is no certainty, no guarantee. You can lose the way even when you are only one step away from enlightenment. And you don't know the way towards enlightenment! So there is every possibility of losing the way, of going astray. By chance a few people have stumbled upon enlightenment. It was just by accident.

Millions of people have been trying and finding nothing and they are not aware that their very search is making them too tense; their very effort is creating a state in which enlightenment cannot happen. Enlightenment can happen when you are so silent, so relaxed, that you are almost not. Just a pure silence and immediately the explosion, the explosion of your luminous soul.

The people who have been very arduous simply destroyed their intelligence, or their body, and I don't think they attained to enlightenment. The very few people who have attained to enlightenment have attained it in a relaxed state. Relaxation is the very soil in which the roses of enlightenment grow.

So it is very good that you want to be relaxed, at ease, with no effort and lots of naps. This is the recipe. You will get enlightened. You can get enlightened today! Enlightenment is your innermost being. Just because you are so much engaged in effort, in seeking, in searching, doing this, doing that, you never reach to your own self. In relaxation you are not going anywhere, you are you’re not doing anything and the grass starts growing by itself.

All that is needed is alertness, intelligence, consciousness, which are not efforts; witnessing, watching, which are not tensions. They are very joyful experiences. You don't get tired of them. You get very calm and quiet. Intelligence has not been known to be a part of your so-called saints. They destroyed it completely by their stupid efforts. And I say unto you, all efforts for enlightenment are stupid.

Enlightenment is your nature! It is just that you don't know, otherwise you are enlightened already. As far as I am concerned you are all enlightened, because I can see your luminous flame within. When I see you, I don't see your figure, I see your being, which is just a beautiful flame.

It is said that Gautam Buddha was surprised that the moment he became enlightened the whole existence became enlightened, because his own eyes changed, his own vision changed. He could look as deep into himself as he could into everyone, even animals and trees. He could see that they are all moving towards enlightenment. Everything needs to realize its own nature; without that life is not a joy, not a festivity.

Just be a little intelligent, Gayano, and enlightenment will happen on of its own accord; you don't even have to think about it.

A woman walks into a bank and goes to the bank president's office. She walks straight up to his desk and says, " ‘I would like to make a ten-thousand-dollar bet.’"

" ‘I am sorry, madam,’" replies the president, " ‘but this bank does not take bets.’"

" ‘I don't want to bet with the bank,’" she says, " ‘I want to bet with you. I bet that by ten o'clock tomorrow your testicles will be square.’"

" ‘I think you are a fool,’" says the president, " ‘but I will take the bet. Be here at ten tomorrow, and bring ten thousand dollars.’"

At nine fifty-five, the woman walks in with a tall, stately looking gentleman. " ‘Who is this guy?’" asks the president.

" ‘He is my attorney,’" replies the woman. " ‘He has come to see that everything is done right.’"

" ‘Okay,’" says the president, and laughing he pulls down his pants.

The woman reaches over and feels if they are square. At that moment, the attorney collapses in a dead faint. " ‘What is up with him?’ " asks the president.

" ‘Well,’" replies the woman, " ‘I bet him fifty thousand dollars that by ten this morning I would have a bank president by the balls.’"

Just be a little intelligent!

The manager, looking angry, strides over to Paddy's desk and taps him on the shoulder.

"Listen," he says, "do me and everyone a favor and stop whistling while you work."

"Hey, man," says Paddy, "who is working?"

A cannibal chief treats himself to a Mediterranean cruise, and on the first night he sits down for dinner and asks for the wine list. He orders a bottle of French wine and consumes it immediately. Then the waiter approaches him and asks if he would like to see the menu.

"No thanks," the chief replies. "Just bring me the passenger list."

A Catholic missionary is captured by cannibals and is surprised to find out that the chief has been to school in England and speaks perfect English.

"I can't understand it," says the indignant priest. "How could you have spent so much time in civilization and still eat people?"

"A-ha!" says the chief. "But now I use a knife and fork."

….Just be a little intelligent. The world is not intelligent. It is functioning in a very unintelligent way and is creating all kinds of miseries for everyone rather than helping them to be happier. Everybody is pulling at on each other's legs, dragging them into deeper darkness, into deeper mud, into deeper trouble. It seems in this world everybody enjoys only one thing: creating misery for others. That's why such a cloud of darkness surrounds the earth. Otherwise there would have been a continuous festival of lights– -- and not ordinary lights, but lights of your very being.

Why have the priests succeeded in convincing man that enlightenment is a very difficult, almost impossible task? The reason is in your mind. Your mind is always interested in the difficult, in the impossible, because that gives it a challenge and the ego needs challenge to become bigger and bigger and bigger.

The priests were successful in convincing you that enlightenment is very difficult, almost impossible. In millions of people only once in a while a man becomes enlightened. Their idea was that you should not become enlightened. To prevent you from enlightenment they used a very clever device. They challenged your ego and you became interested in all kinds of rituals, in all kinds of austerities, self-torture. You made your own life as deep an anguish as possible.

But these people who have made their life a torture, masochists, cannot become enlightened. They go on becoming more and more endarkened. And these people living in darkness start crawling like slaves very easily, because they have lost all their intelligence, all their consciousness in their strange effort.

Have you seen a dog in winter just resting in the sun in the early morning? He sees his tail and immediately becomes interested. What is it? He jumps to catch the tail. But then he becomes crazy, because this seems very strange. As he jumps, the tail also jumps. Yet the distance between the dog and the tail remains the same. He goes round and round. I have watched: the more the tail jumps the more determined he becomes; he uses all his will-power, tries this way and that way to catch hold of it. But the poor dog does not know that it is not possible to catch hold of it. It is already part of him. So when he jumps, it jumps.

Enlightenment is not difficult, not impossible. You don't have to do anything to get it. It is just your intrinsic nature, it is your very subjectivity. All that you have to do is for a moment relax totally, forget all doing, all efforts, so that you are no longer occupied anywhere. This unoccupied consciousness suddenly becomes aware that, " ‘I am it.’"

Enlightenment is the easiest thing in the world, but the priests never wanted the whole world to become enlightened. Otherwise people would not be Christians, they would not be Catholics, they would not be Hindus, they would not be Mohammedans. They have to be kept unenlightened. They have to be kept blind to their own nature. And they have found a very clever way. They are not to do anything, they have just to give you the idea that it is a very difficult, impossible task.

Your ego became immediately interested. The ego is never interested in the obvious. It is never interested in that which you are. It is only interested in a faraway goal– -- the farther the goal, the greater the interest. But enlightenment is not a goal and it is not even an inch away from you– -- it is you!

The seeker is the sought.

The observer is the observed.

The knower is the known.

Once you understand that your very nature is enlightenment ... in fact, the Sanskrit word for religion is dharma dharma. It means nature, your very nature. It does not mean a church, it does not mean a theology, it simply means your nature. For example, what is the dharma dharma of fire?– -- to be hot. And what is the dharma dharma of water?– -- to flow downwards. What is the nature of man? What is the dharma dharma of man?– -- to become enlightened: to know one's godliness.

If you can understand the easiness…, no, the effortless achievement of your nature ... I'll call you intelligent only if you can understand this; if you cannot understand this, you are not intelligent, you are simply an egoist who is trying ... Just as some egoists are trying to be the richest man, a few other egoists are trying to be the most powerful, a few egoists are trying to become enlightened. But enlightenment is not possible for the ego: riches are possible, power is possible, prestige is possible, and they are difficult things, very difficult.

Henry Ford, one of the richest men of his time though he was born poor, was asked, " ‘What is your desire in the next life?’"

He said, " ‘I don't want to be the richest man again. It has been a continuous self-torture my whole life. I have not been able to live. I used to reach the factory early in the morning at seven o'clock, and the manual workers would reach at eight o'clock, the clerks would reach at nine o'clock and the manager would come at ten o'clock and leave at two o'clock; everybody else would leave at five o'clock and I had to work late into the night, sometimes up to ten, sometimes up to twelve.

" ‘I worked hard to become the richest man and I became the richest man. But what is the point? I could not enjoy anything. I worked harder than my laborers. They enjoyed life more. I had no holidays. Even on holidays I used to go to the factory to work out plans for the future.’"

It is difficult, but you can become the richest man if you make enough effort. It is difficult, but you can reach the top of Everest if you make enough effort. But if you make any effort at all, enlightenment becomes impossible for you. If you bring your mind with all its tensions and worries to work out your enlightenment, you are moving in the wrong direction, away from enlightenment.

You need a total let-go, an utterly peaceful, tensionless, silent state of being. And suddenly. . . the explosion. You are all born enlightened whether you realize it or not.

Society does not want you to realize it. Religions don't want you to realize it. Politicians don't want you to realize it, because it goes against every vested interest. They are living and sucking your blood because you are unenlightened. They are able to reduce the whole of humanity into stupid labels: Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, as if you are things, commodities. They have labeled on your forehead who you are.

In India you will actually find b Brahmins with symbols on their foreheads. You can see the symbol and you can recognize to which class of b Brahmin this man belongs. These are means or commodities. They have their symbols marked on their foreheads. You may not have your symbol marked, but you know deep down it is engraved within your being that you are a Christian, that you are a Buddhist, that you are a Hindu.

If you all become enlightened, you will be simply light, a joy to yourself and to others, a blessing to yourself and to the whole of existence, and you will be the ultimate freedom. Nobody can exploit you, nobody can in any way enslave you. And that is the problem: nobody wants you to become enlightened. Unless you see the point you will go on playing into the hands of the vested interests which are all parasites. Their only function is how to suck blood out of you.

If you want freedom, enlightenment is the only freedom. If you want individuality, enlightenment is the only individuality. If you want a life full of blessings, enlightenment is the only experience. And it is very easy, utterly easy; it's the one thing you don't have to do anything to get, because it is already there. You just have to relax and see it.

Hence in India we have nothing parallel to Western philosophy. Philosophy means thinking about truth, `love of knowledge'. In India what we have is a totally different thing. We call it darshan. And darshan does not mean thinking, it means seeing.

Your truth is not to be thought about, it has to be seen. It is already there, . Y you don't have to go anywhere to find it. You don't have to think about it, you have to stop thinking so that it can surface in your being.

Unoccupied space is needed within you so that the light that is hidden can expand and fill your being. It not only fills your being, it starts radiating from your being. Your whole life becomes a beauty, a beauty that is not of the body, but a beauty that radiates from within, the beauty of your consciousness.

                                                         –From Sat Chit An and, Discourse 25