I see acceptance in your eyes and I see also that your eyes have become filled with love in response. Love invokes love and hate invokes hate. Whatever we give returns to us. This is an eternal law. So whatever you wish to receive is what you should give to the world. You cannot receive flowers in exchange for thorns.
I see flowers of love and peace blossoming in your eyes. I am deeply gratified by this. Now we are not many here: love joins together and turns the many into one. Physical bodies are separate and will continue to be separate, but there is something behind the bodies which meets in love, which becomes one in love. It is only after this unity, this oneness that something can be said and understood. Communication is only possible in love and in love alone.
We have gathered in this lonely place so that I can say something to you and you can listen to me. This saying and this listening is not possible without an undercurrent of love. The doors of the heart open only to love. And remember it is only when one hears with the heart and not with the head that listening happens. You may ask, “Does the heart hear as well?” I would say that whenever listening happens it is always through the heart. So far the head has never heard anything. The head is stone deaf. And this is also true of speaking. Only when words come from the heart are they meaningful. Only when words come from the heart do they have the fragrance of fresh flowers; otherwise they are not only stale and faded, they are artificial – plastic flowers.
I shall pour out my heart to you, and if your hearts let me in there will be meeting and communication. And then in that moment of meeting, that which words are incapable of expressing is also communicated. Many unsaid things are heard in this way – that which cannot be put into words, that which lies between the lines is also communicated. Words are very impotent indications, but if listened to in total peace of mind and in silence they become potent. This is what I call listening with the heart.
But as it is, even while listening to someone else we remain full of our own thoughts. That is “false hearing.” Then you are not a shravak, a listener. You are only under the illusion that you are listening, but as a matter of fact you are not.
For “right hearing” it is necessary for the mind to be in a completely silent state of watchfulness. When you are only listening and not doing anything else, only then are you able to hear and understand, and that understanding becomes a light and a transformation within you. If it does not happen in this way, you are not listening to anyone but yourself – you remain surrounded by the tumult raging within you. And when you are engaged in such a way nothing can be communicated to you. Then you appear to be seeing but you are not; you appear to be listening but you are not.
Christ has said, “Those who have eyes to see, see. Those who have ears to hear, hear.” Did those he was talking to not have eyes and ears? Of course they had eyes and ears, but the mere presence of eyes and ears is not enough for seeing and for hearing. Something more is needed and without it the existence or nonexistence of eyes and ears is the same. That something more is inner silence and watchful awareness. It is only when these qualities are there that the doors of the mind are open and something can be said and heard.
I expect this kind of hearing from you during the period of this meditation camp. Once you have learned it, it becomes your lifelong companion. It alone can rid you of trivial preoccupations. You can awaken to the great mysterious universe outside and you can experience the eternal, infinite light of consciousness hidden behind the tumult of the mind.
Right seeing and right hearing are not merely a necessity for this meditation camp but are the foundation of all right living. Just as everything is clearly reflected in a lake that is totally calm, without ripples, that which is the truth, that which is the divine will be reflected in you when you become calm and still like the lake.
I am seeing such silence arising in you. Your eyes – the thirst that I see coming to life in you – are inviting me to say what I wish to say. They are urging me to reveal the truths I have seen which have moved my soul; your hearts are eager and impatient to understand them. Seeing that you are so willing and ready, my heart is also getting ready to pour out to you. In these peaceful surroundings and with your peaceful state of mind, I will certainly be able to say what I wish to say to all of you. If I were to find deaf hearts in front of me, I would refrain. Doesn’t the light remain outside when it finds the doors of your house closed? In the same way I often stand outside many houses. But it is a good sign that your doors are open. It is a good beginning.
From tomorrow morning we will begin our five-day sojourn of the meditation experiment. As a background to this, I would now like to say a few things to you. For meditation, for the realization of truth, the soil of our minds has to be prepared in the same way as one prepares the soil for the cultivation of flowers. So, I would like you to understand a few sutras, a few key points.
The first sutra is: Live in the present. During the camp days don’t be carried away by your mechanical current of thinking about the past and the future. Because of that, the living moment, the moment that really exists, is wasted and it passes away uselessly. Neither the past nor the future exists. One is only in the memory, the other only in imagination. Only the present is the real and the living moment. And if the truth is to be known it can only be known through being in the present.
During these days of meditation, consciously keep yourselves free from the past and the future. Accept that they do not exist. Only the moment at hand, the moment you are in, exists. You have to live in it and to live it totally.
Tonight go to sleep as soundly as though your whole past has been dropped. Die to the past. And in the morning wake up as a new man in a new morning. Don’t let the same one who went to bed get up. Let him go to sleep for good. Let the one who is ever new and ever fresh awake instead.
Keep this living in the present continuously in your remembrance around the clock, and keep aware so that mechanical thinking about the past and future does not start up. To remain watchful is enough for this. If you remain watchful, it cannot be triggered. Consciousness destroys the habit.
The second sutra is: Live naturally. Man’s entire behavior is artificial and formal. We always keep ourselves wrapped in a phony cloak and because of this covering we gradually forget our own reality. You have to shed this false skin and throw it away. We have gathered here not to stage a drama but to know and to realize ourselves. Just as actors in a play remove their costumes and make up and put them aside after the performance, in these five days, you must remove your false masks and throw them away. Let that which is original and natural in you come out – and live in it. Meditation grows only in a simple and natural life.
During these days of meditation, know that you hold no position, you are not special, you have no status. Take away all these masks. You are simply you, an ordinary human being with no name, no status, no class, no family, no caste – just a nameless person, a very ordinary individual. You have to live like this. And remember this is also our actual reality.
The third sutra is: Live alone. A life of meditation takes birth in complete aloneness, when one is all alone. But generally man is never alone. He is always surrounded by others. And when he is not in a crowd outwardly, he is in a crowd inwardly. This crowd has to be dispersed.
Do not allow the crowd to gather within you. And on the outside also live by yourself as if you are all alone at this camp. You don’t have to maintain relations with anyone else. In the midst of these countless relationships you have forgotten yourselves. All these relationships – that you are someone’s enemy or friend, father or son, wife or husband – have so engulfed you that you are unable to know yourself in your own individuality.
Have you ever tried to imagine who you are, away from these relationships of yours? Have you ever discarded the garb of these relationships and seen yourself