219

That means the discourse has succeeded. I don’t mean for you to memorize it. If you have understood it, the fragrance enters into your soul. It is not a question of memorizing. This is not a university. And nobody is going to examine your memory; nobody is going to ask you how much you remember.

When I say ponder over it I don’t mean repeat it, remember it, cram it – no. When I say ponder over it, I mean let the fragrance of it be released into your soul.

Buddha has said that there are three steps in how to listen to a buddha – three steps. First, hearing; second, pondering; third, living.

Hearing means that when you are listening to me you should simply listen; do not think about it. Do not go on commenting inside your mind: right, wrong, good, bad. No commentary on your part is needed; all commentary will be a distraction. And you will miss.

When I say “Listen,” I don’t mean concentrate, because if you concentrate, you will become very tense. Meditation is not possible in a tense mind. So when I say, “Listen, hear,” the first step – it means: simply be relaxed, open, available. I am singing a song to you, let this song reach you and vibrate in you. You should not be worried whether you will be able to remember it or not – that is not the point at all. Once you have vibrated with it, something of it will have penetrated your being, will become part of you. In fact, that which becomes part of you is real knowledge and you need not cram it. The unreal knowledge is that which you have crammed and has not become a part of you.

When a student goes to an examination he remembers a thousand and one things. But after three months, if you ask him, ninety-nine percent of it has gone down the drain. Somehow it was just managed, with very great tension and strain. He was keeping it, holding it, for the examination; once the examination is finished he will lose that hold and things will disappear.

You can observe it in your own life. How much do you remember of that which you crammed in your university days, how much? If you are examined again you will all fail. You will not be able to remember. Even the professors who teach in the universities will all fail if they are examined again because the examination was just a momentary effort. But real knowledge is never forgotten because real knowledge is never remembered. That which is remembered will be forgotten; that which is not remembered cannot be forgotten, there is no way to forget it.

There are a few things you cannot forget: for example, swimming. You cannot forget it. You may not have been to a river for fifty years, but you cannot forget it because it has never been remembered; it has gone into your being, it has become part of you. This is real knowledge. All that is real becomes part of you; it remains available forever and ever. There is no way to forget it. That which I call knowing is that which cannot be forgotten. Even if you make an effort to forget it you will fail – you cannot forget it.

Watch in life and you will find two different categories. One which you have to remember but you go on forgetting again and again. Another is that which you don’t remember but is simply there – is there not as a memory but as part of your being. There is no need to hold it, it is simply there. Even if you want to throw it out, you cannot. That is real knowledge.

So when I say “Hear” I am not saying “Be attentive” because in attention there is tension. The very word is from tension – attention means at tension. Your mind is narrowed. When I say, “Listen,” I mean be relaxed, open; become a sponge. Soak it up. Let it sink into you. Listen to me as you listen to the birds singing in the trees or to the sound of running water. There is no meaning in it. Or, listen to me as you listen to music. Music has no intellectual meaning. You listen to it – you simply drink it, you let it in, you allow it into your very innermost core. And you enjoy it.

If somebody later on asks if you remember what music you have heard, you will not be able to say anything. You will say, “I enjoyed it, it was beautiful, it was something that thrilled me to the very core. I was refreshed through it. I became more alive through it; I felt a sudden joy bursting in my heart.” But these are the impacts that happened to you: there is nothing to say about the music. Listen to me as you do to music.

So don’t be worried. If you forget, good. I am not saying these things to be remembered. I am not here to make you knowledgeable, professional pundits, no. I am not here giving you a training for memory. But an upsurge of understanding can happen. You can respond. You can respond, you can vibrate with whatsoever I am saying. And that will be real hearing. That is the first step.

The second step is pondering. The first step, hearing, is through the mind door, because you have to use the ears and you have to use the mechanical device of the mind. It goes through the mind. If you are not thinking, the mind allows it. If the mind is thinking, the mind obstructs, distorts, and does many things to it. If the mind is not thinking, then mind becomes simply a pure passage, a receptivity.

Hearing is through the mind, pondering is through the heart. When the mind has allowed it, all that you listen to in silence, in love, en rapport with my being – it falls into your heart and accumulates there. Remember the difference. If you want to remember it, it will be retained in the head. The memory exists in the head. If you don’t want to retain it, if you are not interested in remembering it, then it goes into the heart; it falls, pours into the heart and accumulates there.

Then it has a totally different impact on your being. You will not remember it but it will surround you like a fragrance. When I say, “Ponder it,” I mean: let it reach your heart. Don’t listen through thinking; listen through feeling – that is the meaning of pondering. To ponder over it means: let your feeling be aroused – not your thought, not your logic, but your love. Let your love respond. That’s the difference.

When an outsider comes to listen to me just as an outsider, he will at the most be able to accumulate something in the head. When you become a sannyasin it changes, it changes completely. Then you listen in a totally different way. Then you are not fighting with me, you are not arguing with me, you are simply enjoying the song. You dance with me, you sing with me, you are with me. Then it reaches into the heart – you feel with me.

Whatsoever I say to you has nothing to do with my head. It comes from my heart. I say it because I feel for you, I say it because I love you, I say it because great compassion is here, I say it because I want to share my heart with you. It is not a lecture. I am not lecturing at you; I am not your enemy. Why should I lecture at you? I am simply opening my heart, I am allowing you to come into me, I am inviting you to become my guest, I am inviting you to partake of something of my being.

That’s what Jesus means when he says to his disciples, “Eat me. Drink me.” This is a feast! When I say, “Ponder,” I also mean: eat me, drink me, feel me. Let your feelings be thrilled, stirred. Let your heart dance. Rejoice with me. It is a great tiding. I bring you a gospel.

The third step is living. First hear, without thought interfering; then feel, fall en rapport with me, in tune with me; and then live it. It is not a question of cramming, remembering. Living, yes, living is the thing.

You hear me. If it goes into your heart, it will become very easy to live it because from the heart where else can it go? It will go into your being. These are the three layers. The first layer is thinking, the head. Deeper than the head is the heart, feeling. Deeper than the heart is being. So if it soaks through the head, it reaches the heart. If it soaks through the heart, it reaches your being. And from there comes living.

I am not saying practice it. Practice happens only when something has not reached your heart but has been retained by the head. And then you try to practice it. Practice means that you are avoiding the heart, staying in the head; and now you are thinking about what to do about it, how to manage, how to practice, how to create a character on the basis of it. If it reaches your heart, then you can relax. By and by it will start affecting your living.

So what must be done about the third point? You just have to not force it and not obstruct it when it comes. Don’t stand in the way. To many people it is happening every day. Something I said to you six months ago, which you had completely forgotten, is suddenly there when a situation arises – it starts functioning and you behave accordingly. Not that you try – if you try that is not the real thing, that is pseudo – and suddenly, one day, you feel you are not behaving in the usual pattern; the gestalt has changed.

Somebody insults you and you don’t feel hurt. You are surprised at yourself. What has happened? Now, if this happens allow it to happen, support it, cooperate with it; it is very new and fragile; it will need your support. Sometimes it is happening but you obstruct it because you think, “This man is insulting me and this is not the time to ponder on great things. If I allow him to insult me, he will insult me more. Today he will insult me but tomorrow he will start beating me.”

Your mind starts bringing in the old pattern. Your heart is saying, “Relax, this is the moment, smile.” All those beautiful parables and all that fragrance that you have been accumulating in your heart is ready to explode; but your mind says, “Wait, this is not the moment to meditate and this is not the moment to think about great things. This is dangerous.” And you shrink. If you shrink, then that which was happening naturally has been obstructed.

All that you can do is negative. Don’t obstruct. Hearing, don’t think, that is negative. Let it be there. Pondering in the heart is positive, feel it. Again, living becomes negative. Don’t obstruct. Let it take its own form and shape. Let it flow wherever it goes. Don’t be worried. Don’t start manipulating the energy. Allow it. Be in a let-go. When hearing is negative, pondering is positive, living is again negative.

Then you will come to know the ultimate positive, the fourth step, what in India we have called turiya, “the fourth.” That is your selfless self, beingless being, being as non-being – what Buddha calls anatta, no-selfness. That is the most positive thing that will happen. Negative hearing; positive pondering; negative living; and then the ultimate positive happens – the ultimate being.

But the most basic problem arises in the first step. The first step is always the most basic. The second follows easily, the third even more easily, the fourth without any problem – it comes on its own accord. But the first is the most difficult step.

Have you watched a small child starting to walk? The first step is the most difficult. The child hesitates; he has never walked. He has no self-confidence; he cannot trust that he will be able to walk – how can he trust the unknown? That which you have never done before? Again and again the child starts crawling, afraid that he may fall, that he may hurt himself. The first step is the most difficult. Once he has taken the first step then it is very difficult to prevent his taking the second, his taking the third. It is impossible to prevent him. Whenever his mother is not looking he will try again. He may fall but now he has known the adventure, the beauty of it that he can stand on his own.

So the first step is listening without thinking. When I am talking there is every possibility that you are continuously thinking about how to practice it. That is your greed. Beware of it. The greed will not allow you to hear.

Two millionaires were discussing their personal buying habits. “I like to shop at Lord & Taylor’s. They’re very reliable,” said the first. “I tore my coat on a nail in front of their store and they immediately gave me ten dollars.” “Really?” gasped the second. “Do you think the nail is still there?”

Now this man cannot listen. He has already moved into greed. “Do you think the nail is still there?” He only appears to listen but he has gone into the future. He has started planning: what to do, how to get those ten dollars. He may even be a millionaire – that doesn’t matter.

When you listen to me don’t start trips in your mind. It happens every day. I can even feel when a person has gone on a trip. His face changes, he is no longer here. A certain lust can be seen on his face, a greed. He has started thinking about what to do, how to do it and how beautiful it will be if he can do it.

Listening, just listen; don’t move from here. One way is to move into the future, don’t do that; another way is to move into the past, don’t do that either. When you listen to me you start thinking, “Yes, I have heard this, I have read about this. That’s what I also think.” But you have stopped listening.

It was one of the greatest manhunts of all time and Detective O’Sherlock was hot on the trail of the killer. He trailed him into a department store, then he trailed him into a restaurant, then he trailed him into a trailer. But he lost him eventually. “How in God’s name did you lose him?” the chief roared angrily. “I followed him into every hole in town,” explained the great O’Sherlock, ace of the force. “Into everything from men’s toiletries to men’s toilets but I didn’t follow him when he went into the movie. That’s where I lost him.” “And why didn’t you follow him into the movie?” the chief calmly queried, bursting a blood vessel. “Because I already saw the picture.”

Remember, don’t bring in the pictures you have seen before. Don’t bring your memories in. When I am taking you into something, just relax and go with me. Don’t allow the future to interfere; don’t allow the past to interfere. When the past and future are not interfering, you are hearing.

When you are hearing, the second step is very easy – your heart will gather the fragrance of whatsoever is being poured into you, has been told to you. Your heart will start throbbing with a new rhythm that you had not known before, with new energy, with new vitality. The heart will start a new movement of energy.

Then enjoy that, don’t be afraid of it. You are very afraid of the heart; you have been taught to control the heart. You have been taught to reduce the heart to being a slave and to make the head the master.

You will have to do just the opposite, if you really want to go with me into the unknown. The head cannot be the master any longer. Instead of the head, the heart must be crowned again; the heart must become the emperor again. The heart is the master. Feeling should be the master, not thinking, because joy is a feeling, not a thought; because love is a feeling, not a thought; because happiness is a feeling, not a thought; because silence is a feeling, not a thought; because God is a feeling, not a thought. Let feeling be the supreme-most – the sovereign – and let the head serve it. This turn, this conversion, makes one religious.

Then the third step is even easier – just don’t obstruct it. When your heart starts functioning in your day-to-day life, allow it, go with it. Take the risk. That’s what I mean when I say, “Meditate over this parable.”