
I give you only one discipline and that is of self-awareness, that is of freedom
excerpt
series:
The Discipline of Transcendence
Volume 1 / Chapter 4
Aug 24, 1976 Chuang Tzu Auditorium

250



The fifth question:
You have said that you eat when the body is hungry and you sleep when the body needs rest. But I have heard that you exactly follow the clock for your bath, food, sleep, etcetera. Please explain.
Mm? It is from Krishna Radha. But she is asking like a magistrate: 'Please explain!' It is just the other way around -- the clock follows me, and I look at the clock just to see whether it is following or not.
Let me tell you one anecdote:
Mulla Nasrudin was testifying in court. He noticed that everything he was saying was being taken down by the court reporter. As he went along he began talking faster and still faster. Finally the reporter was frantic to keep up with him. Suddenly the Mulla said, 'Good gracious, mister. Don't write so fast. I cannot keep up with you.'
I am not following the clock at all. But I have come to understand my body. I have come to feel its needs. I have learned much by listening to it. And if you also listen and you become attentive to your body, you will start having a discipline which cannot be called a discipline. I have not forced it on myself. I have tried all sorts of things in my life. I have been continuously experimenting just to feel where my body fits perfectly.
Once I used to get up early, at three o'clock in the morning. Then at four o'clock, then at five o'clock. Now I have been getting up at six for many years. By and by I watched what fits with my body. One has to be very sensitive. Now physiologists say that everybody's body, while sleeping, loses its normal temperature for two hours; the temperature falls by two degrees. It may happen to you between three and five, or two and four, or four and six, but everybody's body falls two degrees in temperature every night. And those two hours are the deepest for sleep. If you get up in between those two hours, the whole day you will feel disoriented. You may have slept six, seven hours; that makes no difference. If you get up between those two hours when the temperature was low, then you will feel the whole day tired, sleepy, yawning. And you will feel that something is missing. You will be more disturbed. The body will feel unhealthy.
If you get up exactly after two hours, when those two hours have passed, that is the right moment for you to get up. Then you are perfectly fresh. If you can sleep only two hours even that will do. Six, seven, eight hours are not needed. If you sleep only for those two hours when the temperature is two degrees lower, you will feel perfectly happy, at ease. The whole day you will feel a grace, silence, health, wholeness, well-being.
Now everybody has to watch when those two hours are. Don't follow any discipline from the outside, because that discipline may have been good for the person who created it.... Vinoba gets up at three o'clock in the morning. It must be fitting well with him, but then the whole ashram, then all his followers get up at three o'clock and they feel dull the whole day. I have seen his followers -- dullards. And then they think that they are not capable of such an ordinary discipline. Then they feel guilty. They try hard but they cannot win and then they think that Vinoba seems to be very exceptional, very great. He's never dull. But it simply suits with him.
You have to find your own body, its way, what suits -- that's right for you. And once you have found it, you can easily allow it, and it will not be enforced because it will be in tune with the body, so there is nothing as if you are imposing it; there is no struggle, no effort. Watch, while eating, what suits you. People go on eating all sorts of things. Then they get disturbed. Then their mind gets affected. Never follow anybody's discipline, because nobody is like you, so nobody can say what is going to suit you. That's why I give you only one discipline and that is of self-awareness, that is of freedom. You listen to your own body. The body has a great wisdom in it. If you listen to it, you will always be right. If you don't listen to it and you go on enforcing things on it, you will never be happy; you will be unhappy, ill, ill at ease, and always disturbed and distracted, disoriented.
This has been a long experimentation. I have eaten almost all sorts of things, and then by and by I eliminated all that was not suiting me. Now whatsoever suits, I eat only that. Vivek is in trouble, because she has to cook almost the same thing every day and she cannot believe how I go on eating and go on enjoying it. Eating is okay -- but enjoying it? If it suits, you can enjoy the same thing again and again. It is not a repetition for you. If it doesn't suit, then there is trouble.
It happened:
One Thursday night Mulla Nasrudin came home to supper. His wife served him baked beans. He threw his plate of beans against the wall and shouted, 'I hate baked beans!' 'Mulla, I can't figure you out,' his wife said. 'Monday night you liked baked beans, Tuesday night you liked baked beans, Wednesday night you liked baked beans, and now all of a sudden on Thursday night you say you hate baked beans. This is inconsistent!'
Ordinarily you cannot eat the same thing every day. But the reason is not that it is the same thing, the reason is that it doesn't suit you. One day you can tolerate, another day it becomes too much. And how can you tolerate it every day? If it suits you then there is no problem; you can live your whole life on it, and every day you can enjoy it, because it brings such harmony. It simply fits with you, it is in accord with you.
You go on breathing; it is the same breath. You go on taking a bath; it is the same water. You go on sleeping; it is the same sleep. But it suits, then everything is okay. Then it is not a repetition at all. Repetition is your attitude. If you are living perfectly in harmony with nature, then you don't bother about the yesterday that has gone, you don't carry it in your mind. You don't compare your yesterdays with your today and you don't project your tomorrows. You simply live here and now, you enjoy this moment.
Enjoyment of the moment has nothing to do with new things. Enjoyment of the moment has certainly something to do with harmony. You can go on changing new things every day, but if they don't suit, you will always be running from here to there and never finding any rest.
But whatsoever I'm doing is not enforced, it is spontaneous. That's how by and by I became aware of my body's needs. I always listen to my body. I would never impose my mind on the body. Do likewise and you will have a happier, a more blissful life.
The Discipline of Transcendence
Volume 1 / Chapter 4