"Perceiving the Bull" - OSHO

From [The Search ] 4 March 1976 am in Buddha Hall

3. PERCEIVING THE BULL
I HEAR THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE SUN IS WARM, THE WIND IS MILD, WILLOWS ARE GREEN ALONG THE SHORE. HERE NO BULL CAN HIDE!
WHAT ARTIST CAN DRAW THAT MASSIVE HEAD, THOSE MAJESTIC HORNS? COMMENT:

WHEN ONE HEARS THE VOICE, ONE CAN SENSE ITS SOURCE. AS SOON AS THE SIX SENSES MERGE, THE GATE IS ENTERED. WHEREVER ONE ENTERS ONE SEES THE HEAD OF THE BULL! THIS UNITY IS LIKE SALT IN WATER, LIKE COLOR IN DYESTUFF. THE SLIGHTEST THING IS NOT APART FROM SELF.

4. CATCHING THE BULL
I SEIZE HIM WITH A TERRIFIC STRUGGLE.
HIS GREAT WILL AND POWER ARE INEXHAUSTIBLE.
HE CHARGES TO THE HIGH PLATEAU FAR ABOVE THE CLOUD-MISTS, OR IN AN IMPENETRABLE RAVINE HE STANDS.

COMMENT:

HE DWELT IN THE FOREST A LONG TIME, BUT I CAUGHT HIM TODAY! INFATUATION FOR SCENERY INTERFERES WITH HIS DIRECTION. LONGING FOR SWEETER GRASS, HE WANDERS AWAY. HIS MIND STILL IS STUBBORN AND UNBRIDLED. IF I WISH HIM TO SUBMIT, I MUST RAISE MY WHIP.

I wonder whether you have observed it or not: that man is the only animal who draws his picture, his own picture. No other animal has ever done that. Not only does he draw pictures of himself, he stands before a mirror, looks at himself mirrored, reflected. Not only that – he stands before the mirror, looks at his reflection, and looks at himself looking at his reflection, and so on and so forth. Because of this, self-consciousness arises. Because of this, ego is born. Because of this, man becomes more interested in reflections than in reality.

Watch your own mind! You become more interested in a pornographic picture than in a real woman. Pictures have a tremendous grip over the human mind; hence man lives in a fiction. And self- knowledge is not possible in fiction. You have to become more interested in the real than in the reflected. Mirrors have to be broken. You have to come back home; otherwise, you go on further and further away from yourself.

This interest in reflections, fictions, dreams, thoughts, images, is the basic cause why man cannot know himself. He is not interested at all in himself. He is more interested in the opinion of others, what they think about him. That again is a mirror. You are constantly worried what people think about you. You are not worried at all about who you are – that is not a real quest – but about what people think you are. Hence you go on decorating yourself. Your morality, your virtue, is nothing but a decoration so that in others’ eyes you can look beautiful, good, righteous, religious. But this is a great loss.

If people think you are religious, that does not make you religious. If people think you are happy, that doesn’t make you happy. And once you are on the wrong track, you can miss your whole life.

Become more interested in being happy than being thought happy. Become more interested in being beautiful rather than being thought beautiful – because thoughts cannot satisfy your thirst, thoughts cannot satisfy your hunger. Whether people think you are well-fed or not is not the question; you cannot deceive the body. Real food is needed, pictures of food won’t do. Real water is needed, pictures of water, formulas about water, won’t do. H2O cannot quench your thirst. Once you understand this, then the discovery starts; then you are in search of the bull.

Watch yourself. You will catch yourself red-handed many times a day when you are not thinking about reality but about fictions. Looking in a mirror and thinking that you are looking at yourself is one of the most absurd things. The face that is mirrored is not your face; it is just the surface, it is just the periphery. No mirror can mirror your center. And the circumference is not you. The circumference goes on changing every moment; it is a flux.

Why are you so much attracted to the form? Why not to the real? A man who is in search of his self, who has become interested in self-knowledge, goes on breaking all mirrors. He does not smile because people are looking at him and a smile will give a good impression about him, he smiles when he feels to. His smile is authentic. It is not dependent on people, it is not dependent on onlookers. He lives his life. He is not trying always to convince an audience that ”I am so and so.”

Remember: people who are too much concerned about convincing others are empty people, hollow within. They don’t have anything authentic. Otherwise, the desire will disappear. If you are a happy man you are a happy man and you don’t think about it, that it has to be reflected in others’ eyes. You don’t go on collecting opinions. Whatsoever identity you think you have, just analyze it and you will see thousands of people have said things about you and you have gathered them. Something your mother said, something your father said, your brother, friends, society, and you have gathered all that. Of course, it is going to be contradictory because of so many people, so many mirrors. Your identity is self-contradictory. You cannot call it a self, because a self is possible only when you have dropped living in contradictions. But for that you have to go within. The first step of understanding is that your self is already waiting for you – within you. You need not look into anybody else’s eyes.

Don’t believe in mirrors – believe in reality. I have heard, once it happened:

An old clergyman advised a politician to go out into the rain and lift his head heavenward. ”It will bring a revelation to you,” he promised.

Next day the politician returned. ”I followed your advice,” he said, ”and water came down my neck and I felt like a fool.”

”Well,” said the old clergyman, ”for a first try, don’t you think that’s quite a revelation?”

If you can understand your foolishness, it is quite a revelation – yes it is, because from that point begins a journey.

A man who is constantly worried about his impression in others’ eyes, how he looks in mirrors, is a fool, because he is wasting a great opportunity in which tremendous experiences are possible. But he has not taken the first step, afraid because he will look like a fool. Don’t be afraid of foolishness, otherwise you will remain a fool.

One day or other you have to recognize the fact that up to now you have lived in deep stupidity. And if you go on living this way – through mirrors, reflections, opinions – you by and by lose your individuality, you become part of the masses, you lose your soul. Then you are not an authentic individual.

The word ’mass’ comes from a Latin root massa. Massa means something which can be molded, kneaded. And when I say you become a mass, I mean that you are being continuously molded by others, kneaded by others. But you allow it, you cooperate with it. You take all sorts of trouble to become a part of the mass, of some crowd, because alone you lose your identity. Your whole identity is through the crowd.

That’s why people, when they become retired, die sooner. Psychoanalysts say that at least ten years’ life is cut. Politicians, when they are in power, are very healthy; once they are out of power, their health disappears, they die soon – because out of power their whole identity starts disappearing like a dream. Out of the office, suddenly you are nobody. You have been nobody your whole life, but you go on believing in the fictions that you create around you.

A man who is a great officer thinks himself great; once his post is gone, all the greatness is gone. A man who is rich thinks himself rich through his riches; he feels he is somebody. If he becomes a bankrupt suddenly, it is not only that his wealth disappears, his soul disappears, his whole identity is gone. It was a paper boat, it was a house of playing cards – a small breeze and everything is gone.

Self-knowledge means that you have come to understand one thing: that you have to know yourself immediately, directly – not through others, not via others. There is no need to ask anybody; how stupid it is to ask somebody: Who am I? How can anybody answer it? Go withinwards – that is the search of the bull. Go into your own energy; it is there. Just taste it, just merge with it.

Once you have understood that you have to seek your identity within yourself, in total aloneness, you are becoming free from the masses, from the crowd. Individuality is born, you are becoming an individual, unique. And remember: when I say ’individual’ I don’t mean an egoist. An egoist is always part of the masses. The ego is the total of all the opinions that you have gathered from others about you, and hence the ego is very contradictory. Sometimes it says you are not beautiful, very ugly; sometimes it says you are very beautiful, very lovely; sometimes it says you are a fool; sometimes it says you are a wise man – because in so many situations so many things have been said to you about you, and you have gathered all of them.

The ego is always in trouble. It is a false entity. It appears as if it is, and it is not.

When you become individual.... The word is good: it means indivisible. Individual means that which cannot be divided, that which cannot suffer any split, that which cannot be two, dual or many, that which is absolutely one, no division exists; then you are an individual. It has nothing to do with the ego. Ego is a barrier towards it because ego is always divided, so much so that many times people come to me and I ask them: Are you happy? – they shrug their shoulders. I ask them: Are you unhappy? – again they shrug their shoulders. They are not definite about what state of mind they are in, because there are many states of mind together within them. They would like to say both yes and no to every question.

I have heard about a political leader who was suffering from a split personality, the beginning of schizophrenia. He was hospitalized. In ordinary things also, he had become very indecisive. He could not make ordinary decisions: whether to go to the bathroom or not, to eat this or not, to wear these clothes or not – small things, trivia. And anything that had to be decided would create trembling in him. He was treated six months in the hospital, and when the doctors decided that he was perfectly okay they told him, ”Now you can go. You are now normal; the problem has disappeared. What do you say?”

He said, ”Yes and no.”

The ego is many, it is never one. Because it has been collected from so many different people it cannot be one. You are one, the ego is many. And if you think that you are the ego, then you are on the path of madness. Once you understand this, you can see the footprints of the bull.

Once I traveled all over the country with a friend. He was constantly with his camera. In the Himalayas he was not interested in the Himalayas – he was interested in taking pictures. One fullmoon night we were looking at the Taj Mahal, and he was interested in taking pictures. After a few moments together, I asked him, ”What are you doing? The Taj Mahal is here; I don’t see you looking at the Taj Mahal. You are constantly worried about your pictures, whether the pictures will come out or not, the light is proper or not.”

He said, ”Why be worried about the Taj Mahal? Later on I am going to make a beautiful album of the whole journey. Then I can sit and see things.”

This is ’kodakomania’: interested more in pictures than in the reality. Become more interested in reality. And whenever your mind tries to pull you away from reality – in pictures, fictions, dreams – become alert, come back. Come back to the present moment.

One doctor used to come here; now he has been transferred from Poona. He was continuously taking notes; while I was speaking, he would take notes. I told him, ”While I am speaking, try to understand it.”

He said, ”But taking notes is good, because later on, at home, with ease, I can go through them and understand.”

Now this man will never be able to understand what I am saying, because it is not a question of taking notes; it is a transfer of a certain vision. He never looked at me because he was looking at his copy. And I don’t think that he could write notes either, because by the time he wrote, something else had been said and he missed this. They would be just fragmentary. And then he would make a whole out of them – that whole would be his, not mine.

You have to be here with me in reality, totally here with me. Then... then a new understanding arises. And that should become your way of life, the very style. Constantly be engaged in reality, participate in reality. Don’t be an onlooker, and don’t get too much interested in pictures; otherwise, by and by, you will lose the capacity to be aware of reality. But mind has old, deep habits, and it is going to be a constant struggle in the beginning. The mind is like a salesman.

I have heard an anecdote:

The salesman for a junior encyclopedia got his foot in the doorway and was trying to fast-talk the young mother of a five-year-old into taking a set of the books.

”These books will answer any question your child will ever ask,” he assured her. ”You will never be at a loss for an answer with these.” He patted the boy on the head, ”Go ahead, sonny. Ask me a question, any question, and I’ll show your mother how easy it is to answer by looking in one of these books.”

The little fellow thought a moment, and then asked, ”What kind of car does God drive?”

Life is like that. And mind is like the salesman and the Encyclopedia Britannica. The mind goes on accumulating things, cataloging all the experiences – categorizing, classifying, filing, so that in future when the time comes they can be used. But life is so alive that it never asks the same question again. And if you are too much in your mind, then always whatsoever you answer is not to the point – it can never be. Life goes on changing every moment. It is like a small child asking, ”What kind of car does God drive?”

You can manage to find some answer about this also – a Rolls Royce, or something else – but the child is not going to ask the same question again. Next moment he will be asking something else. The child’s curiosity is more than any encyclopedia. And life is so innovative that no book can answer real situations.

So try to be more alert rather than more knowledgeable. If you become too much knowledgeable, you will collect pictures, memories; you will go on taking notes; you will go on comparing your notes. You will come to a beautiful rose, and you will compare with some other roses that you have seen in the past; or you may compare with some other roses which you hope to see in the future – but you will never look at this rose. And only this rose is true! The roses that are accumulated in your memory are unreal, and the roses that you dream about are also unreal. Only this rose is real. Remember this, here now.

If you shift your energy from mind towards awareness, you will be immediately aware of the footprints of the bull. Ordinarily, you follow the crowd. It is convenient, it is comfortable; it is like a sedative. With the crowd you need not worry; the responsibility is with the crowd. You can leave all the questions to the experts. And you can depend on a long tradition, the wisdom of the ages. When so many people are there doing one thing, it is easier to imitate them than to do your own thing, because once you start doing your own thing, doubts arise: maybe... are you right or wrong? With a great crowd doing something, you become part of it. The question never arises whether you are right or wrong. ”So many people can’t be wrong,” the mind goes on saying, ”they must be right. And for so many centuries they have been doing the same thing; there must be some truth in it.” If doubt arises in you, then doubt is your fault. For centuries and centuries a crowd has been doing a certain thing. One can follow easily, imitate. But once you imitate others, you will never be able to know who you are. Then self-knowledge becomes impossible.

In the Malayan language, they have a word, lattah. It is very beautiful. The word means: people imitate others because they are frightened; out of fear people imitate others. Have you watched? If you are sitting in a theater and suddenly the theater is on fire and people start running, you will follow the crowd – wherever the crowd is going. It happens when a ship is sinking, the greatest problem becomes this: that the whole crowd runs towards one direction, they all gather together on one side, which helps the ship to sink sooner.

Whenever you are in fear, you lose individuality. Then there is no time to think and meditate, then there is no time to decide on your own; time is short and a decision is needed. In times of fear people imitate others. But ordinarily, also, you live in lattah, you live in a constant frightened state. And the crowd does not like you to become different, because that creates suspicion in others’ minds also.

If one person goes against the crowd – one Jesus or one Buddha – the crowd doesn’t feel good with this man, the crowd will destroy him; or, if the crowd is very cultured, the crowd will worship him. But both ways are the same. If the crowd is a little wild, uncultured, Jesus will be crucified. If the crowd is like the Indians – very cultured, centuries of culture, of nonviolence, of love, of spirituality – they will worship the Buddha. But by worshipping they are saying: We are different; you are different. We cannot follow you, we cannot come with you. You are good, very good, but too good to be true. You don’t belong to us. You are a god – we will worship you. But don’t trouble us; don’t say things which can unhinge us, which can disturb our peaceful sleep.

Kill a Jesus or worship a Buddha – both are the same. Jesus is killed so the crowd can forget that such a man ever existed, because if this man is true.... And this man is true. His whole being is so full of bliss and benediction that he is true; because truth cannot be seen, only the fragrance that comes out of a true man can be felt. The blissfulness can be felt by others, and that is a proof that this man is true. But if this man is true, then the whole crowd is wrong, and this is too much. The whole crowd cannot tolerate such a person; it is a thorn, painful. This man has to be destroyed – or worshipped, so we can say: You come from another world, you don’t belong to us. You are a freak, you are not the normal rule. You may be the exception, but the exception only proves the rule. You are you, we are us: we will go on our path. Good that you came – we respect you very much – but don’t disturb us. We put Buddha in the temple so that he need not come into the marketplace; otherwise he will create trouble.

Out of fear you go on following others. Out of fear you cannot become an individual. So if you are really in search of the bull, then drop fear, because the search is such that you will be moving in danger, you will be taking risks. And the society and the crowd is not going to feel good. And the society will create all sorts of troubles for you, so that you can come back and become normal again.

The first thing I told you about man is that he is more interested in pictures than in reality, more interested in mirrors than in reality, more interested in his own image than in himself. And the second basic thing about man to be remembered is: man is the only animal who stands erect – the only animal who walks on his two hind legs. This has created a very unique situation for man.

Animals walk on their four legs. They can look only in one direction. Man stands on his two feet – he can look in all directions simultaneously. There is no need to turn his whole body; just the turning of the head and he can look in all directions. Because of this possibility, man became an escapist. Whenever there is a danger, rather than fighting, encountering the danger, he escapes. In the same situation where the animal will have to encounter the enemy, man tries to escape. All directions are available. The enemy is coming from the north – a lion is standing there – now, all directions are available for man; he can run away, he can escape.

Man is the only escapist animal. Nothing is wrong in it as far as fighting with animals is concerned – and man has been in the wild for long. Still he goes on escaping from lions and tigers; must have had great experience in the past. But that escapism has become a deep rooted mechanism in man. The same he goes on doing with psychological things.

If there is fear, then rather than encountering it he goes in another direction – prays to God, asks for help. Feeling poverty, inside poverty, rather than encountering it he goes on accumulating wealth, so that he can forget that he is poor inside. Seeing that he does not know himself, rather than encountering this ignorance he goes on collecting knowledge, becomes knowledgeable, like a parrot, and goes on repeating borrowed things.

These are all escapes. If you really want to encounter yourself, you will have to learn how not to escape. Anger is there; don’t escape from it. Whenever you feel angry, you start doing something to become occupied. Of course, if your energy moves in another direction, anger is repressed. It cannot get any energy from you; it falls back into the unconscious. But it will take revenge; sooner or later it will find an opportunity again and will come up out of all proportion to the situation.

If sex arises in you, you start doing something else, you start chanting a mantra. But these are all escapes. And remember: religion is not an escape. The religions that you know are all escapes; but the religion I am talking about is not an escape – it is an encounter. Life has to be encountered. Whatsoever comes before you, you have to look into it deeply, because that same depth is going to become your self-knowledge.

Behind anger are the footprints of the bull. Behind sex are the footprints of the bull. If you escape from sex, anger, greed, this and that, you will be escaping from the footprints of the bull – and then it will be impossible to find who you are.

These two things: that man is interested in fictions more.... Have you seen people in the theater looking at a movie, how different they are there? They cry; if something happens on the screen, tears go on flowing from their eyes. In real life you don’t find them so kind, so compassionate. In real life they may be very hard. But looking at a picture – and nothing is there on the screen; just light and shadow, a game, a dream – they cry and weep and they laugh, and they become excited. Rather than watching the movie, it will be more valuable if you watch the audience. What is happening to these people?

Man seems to be more interested in illusions than in reality. And if you try to awaken somebody from his illusions he gets angry; he will never forgive you. He will take revenge – you disturbed him. These fictions of the mind and a constant readiness to escape are the two problems which have to be faced.

I have heard: One mother wanted to spend Saturday afternoon downtown, and father, a statistician, reluctantly agreed to give up his golf and sit with the children. On her return, the father handed over the following report on the afternoon:

”Dried tears – nine times. Tied shoes – thirteen times. Toy balloons purchased – three per child. Average life of balloon – thirteen seconds. Cautioned children not to cross the street – twenty-one times. Number of Saturdays I will do this again – zero.”

A statistician is a statistician. Mind is very mathematical; that’s why mind has become so powerful. That’s why it is so difficult to get out of the mind. So much is invested in it: your whole efficiency, your whole caliber, your whole career – everything depends on the mind. And in meditation you have to come out of it. Hence many times you decide to come out, but deep down you go on clinging.

Mind pays in many ways. Particularly in the world, if you exist with no-mind you will not be able to compete, you will not be able to struggle violently; you cannot become a part of the cut-throat rat race which is continuously going on. In this crowd of mad people, you will not be able to participate. You will walk down the street by the side; you will find a footpath of your own.

Of course, you will become rich, tremendously rich, but the society will not count it as riches. You will become beautiful, tremendously beautiful, but your beauty will be incomprehensible to the mediocre minds of whom the society consists. You will become very, very happy, blissful, silent, but people will think that you have gone crazy – because misery to them seems to be the normal state of the human mind. To be miserable seems okay, but to be blissful seems a sort of madness. Who has ever heard of a man being happy without being mad? It does not happen.

So if you are really in search of the bull, you will have to take this risk of getting out of the mass. And you can get out of the mass only if you can get out of the mind, because the mass has created your mind.

The mind is the inner mass. The mass has created a mechanism inside you; from there you are controlled. The society believes in certain things; those beliefs the society has inculcated in you. Deep down, when you were almost unaware, it hypnotized you into a certain role. If you do something against it, immediately conscience will say no. That conscience is not really conscience; that’s a substitute, a social trick, politics. The society has created certain rules inside your mind, and if you go against them, immediately from your inside comes the voice of the society: Don’t do it. It is wrong. It is a sin. The society will force you from the inside to feel guilty.

If you want to get out of the so-called conscience, and achieve a real and authentic conscience, then a great effort is needed. And the whole effort is going to be this: a shift of consciousness from mind to no-mind, from conscience to consciousness.

Conscience is given by society; consciousness arises in you. Conscience is borrowed, stale, rotten; conscience comes from the past which is no more – and life has changed completely. Consciousness comes from you. Consciousness is always of the present, it is always fresh. Consciousness will make you integrated – consciousness is integrity.

The word ’integrity’ is a Latin word; it comes from two roots – ’in’ and ’tangere’. Tangere means pure, whole, uncorrupted, virgin. A man of integrity is whole; not many – one. A man of integrity is pure, uncorrupted by the past, virgin. And out of that virginity arises the fragrance which we call religion.

Morality is not religion. Morality is a social trick.
Religion is individual discovery – you have to discover religion.
Morality can be given; religion never.
Now the sutras:
The third sutra: Perceiving the Bull.
I HEAR THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE SUN IS WARM, THE WIND IS MILD, WILLOWS ARE GREEN ALONG THE SHORE.
HERE NO BULL CAN HIDE!
WHAT ARTIST CAN DRAW THAT MASSIVE HEAD, THOSE MAJESTIC HORNS?
The fourth sutra: Catching the Bull.
I SEIZE HIM WITH A TERRIFIC STRUGGLE.
HIS GREAT WILL AND POWER ARE INEXHAUSTIBLE.
HE CHARGES TO THE HIGH PLATEAU FAR ABOVE THE CLOUD-MISTS,
OR IN AN IMPENETRABLE RAVINE HE STANDS.
The third sutra is about sensitivity.
I HEAR THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE SUN IS WARM, THE WIND IS MILD, WILLOWS ARE GREEN ALONG THE SHORE.

When you become sensitive, sensitive to all that is happening around you – THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE – when you become sensitive to everything that is happening to you, and surrounding you, then THE SUN IS WARM, THE WIND IS MILD, WILLOWS ARE GREEN ALONG THE SHORE.

The religious search is different from a scientific search. In a scientific search, inquiry, you have to be concentrated, so much so that you forget the whole world. There have been cases: a scientist was working in his lab and the house caught fire, but he was not aware of it. He had to be dragged out of the house. He was so concentrated... so narrow becomes the consciousness that everything else is excluded, bracketed off: only one object, like a target.

In India we have a great epic poem, Mahabharat. Bhagavad Gita is only one part of it. The Pandavas and the Kauravas, the cousin-brothers, are being taught by a master archer, Dronacharya. One day he has put the target on a tree, and he asks every disciple what he is seeing. Somebody says, ”I see the tree and the sky and the sun rising.” Somebody says, ”I see the tree, the branches, the birds on the tree.” And this way he goes on.

And then he comes to his chief disciple, Arjuna, and he asks, ”What do you see?”

Arjuna says, ”I can’t see anything – just the target.”

And Dronacharya said, ”Only you can be a great archer.”

Concentration is a narrowing of consciousness. A concentrated mind becomes very, very insensitive towards everything else.

This is meditation: becoming aware of all that is happening, without any choice, just choicelessly aware.

I HEAR THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE SUN IS WARM, THE WIND IS MILD, WILLOWS ARE GREEN ALONG THE SHORE.
HERE NO BULL CAN HIDE!

In such a sensitivity, how can the bull hide? The bull can hide if you are concentrated in one direction; then there are many directions in which the bull can hide. But when you are not concentrated in any direction, just open to all directions, how can the bull hide? A beautiful sutra! Now there is no possibility, because there is not a single corner which is outside your consciousness. There is no hiding place.

Through concentration you can avoid. You become alert about one thing at the cost of a thousand and one other things. In meditation, you are simply aware without any bracketing. You don’t put anything aside. You are simply available. If the nightingale sings, you are available. If the sun is felt, touches you on the body and you feel the warmth, you are available. If the wind passes by, you feel it, you are available. A child cries, a dog barks; you are simply aware. You don’t have any object.

Concentration is objective. Meditation has no object to it. And in this choiceless awareness, mind disappears – because mind can remain only if consciousness is narrow. If the consciousness is wide, wide open, the mind cannot exist. Mind can exist only with choice.

You say: This singing of the nightingale is beautiful. In that moment, all else is excluded – mind has come in.

Let me tell you in this way: Mind is a narrowing state of consciousness, consciousness flowing through a very narrow passage, through a tunnel.

Meditation is just standing in the open sky, available to everything.

HERE NO BULL CAN HIDE!

WHAT ARTIST CAN DRAW THAT MASSIVE HEAD, THOSE MAJESTIC HORNS?

And suddenly the bull is seen! In great sensitivity, suddenly you become aware of your energy, pure energy, sheer delight.

WHAT ARTIST CAN DRAW THAT MASSIVE HEAD, THOSE MAJESTIC HORNS?

No, no artist can draw it. It is the real bull, it is not a picture.

The prose comment:

WHEN ONE HEARS THE VOICE, ONE CAN SENSE ITS SOURCE. AS SOON AS THE SIX SENSES MERGE, THE GATE IS ENTERED.

This is what sensitivity is all about – all your senses merged into one sensitivity. Not that you are eyes and ears and nose, no – you are eyesearsnose all together. There is no gap. You see and you hear and you touch and you smell and you taste all together, simultaneously. You have not chosen any sense in particular.

Ordinarily, we all choose. A few people are eye-oriented: they only see, they cannot hear so well – they are sound-blind. If some great music is going on, they simply feel restless: What is there to listen to? If there is something to be seen, they are ready. They may enjoy a dance, but they will not enjoy singing.

There are ear-oriented people who can enjoy sound and singing, but their eyes are dull. And the same with other senses. Each person has devoted his energy to one sense and that has become a dominating factor, a dictatorial factor. Particularly eyes have become very important, and eighty percent of your energy is devoted to the eyes. Other senses suffer badly because only twenty percent is left for all other senses. The eye has become an Adolf Hitler. The democracy of your senses is lost.

That’s why whenever you see a blind man you feel more compassion than you feel towards a deaf man. In fact, your compassion is needed more for the deaf man because a deaf man is cut off from society completely. Because human society is basically language, all communication is cut off. A blind man is not so much cut off from society. A deaf man is in a more difficult plight, but nobody feels as much pity for him as for a blind man. Why? – because eyes are eighty percent of our civilization.

That’s why, if somebody attains to truth, we say he is a great seer. Why seer? Truth can be heard, truth can be tasted, truth can be smelt. Why do we just call him a great seer? – because of the eyes. We are eye-oriented. And this is a very unbalanced state. Each sense has to be given its total freedom, and all the senses should merge into one great current of awareness, sensitivity.

A real man of understanding lives through all the senses; his touch is total. If a real man of understanding touches you, immediately you will feel a transfer of energy. Suddenly you will feel something inside you has been awakened; his energy has touched your sleeping energy. Something arises in you.

If you hear the voice of a man of understanding, his content is significant, but even his voice is significant. Something touches your heart, something soothes you. His voice surrounds you like a warm blanket – his voice has warmth, it is not cold. It has a singing quality in it, a poetry.

The sutra says:

WHEN ONE HEARS THE VOICE, ONE CAN SENSE ITS SOURCE. AS SOON AS THE SIX SENSES MERGE, THE GATE IS ENTERED.

Here Zen is superb. No other religion, no other development, has touched so deeply on the right path. Senses should remain alive – not only that: your senses should fall in a deep inner rhythm and harmony, they should become an orchestra. Only then can truth be known, only then can you catch hold of the bull.

WHEREVER ONE ENTERS ONE SEES THE HEAD OF THE BULL!

And then, when your senses are totally alive and merging into each other, and you have become a pool of energy, WHEREVER ONE ENTERS ONE SEES THE HEAD OF THE BULL!

THIS UNITY IS LIKE SALT IN WATER...

Your awareness moves through all your senses like salt in water.

... LIKE COLOR IN DYESTUFF. THE SLIGHTEST THING IS NOT APART FROM SELF.

And out of this wholeness of sensitivity arises the self, the atman – your authentic being. Create a rhythm, create a harmony, create an orchestra of your being. Then the bull cannot hide anywhere.

I SEIZE HIM WITH A TERRIFIC STRUGGLE.

Struggle is going to be there, because the mind is not going to lose its power easily. The mind has been a dictator for so long; now you want the dictator to come down from the throne – it is impossible. The mind has become accustomed to bossing you and bullying you. It will give you a tough fight. It will go on following you, and it will go on finding weak moments when it can again overpower you.

I have heard a very beautiful anecdote:

The family was gathered at dinner. The eldest son announced he was going to marry the girl next door.

”But her family did not leave her anything,” the father objected.
”And she spends all her salary,” added the mother.
”What does she know about football?” asked the younger brother. ”Did you ever see a girl with so many freckles?” demanded the sister. ”All she does is read books,” grumbled the uncle.

”And doesn’t dress with what I would have called good taste,” snapped the aunt. ”But she doesn’t forget the paint and the powder,” chimed the grandma.
”Yes,” said the son, ”but she has one big advantage over all of us.”
”What’s that?” came the chorus of voices.

”No family!” retorted the son.

The family resists always. Now the son is going to get married; that means another woman, a stranger, is now going to become the most important person in his life. The family feels shaken. No family ordinarily, normally, accepts such a situation – it fights.

In India, love is not allowed. Marriage has to be arranged by the family. The father has to think about it, the uncle has to think, the brothers, the mother; everybody except the person who is really concerned, who is going to be married. He is not to be asked, as if he has no part in it. He is going to live with this woman to whom he is going to be married, but he is not even asked. Then the family does not feel threatened; it is their own choice.

But if a son comes and says: I have fallen in love, the whole family feels antagonistic. The antagonism is because now a stranger is going to become very, very important. The mother will never feel at ease with the daughter-in-law. There is going to be a constant bickering and fighting – because the mother was supreme up to now, and suddenly she is deposed. Now another woman, a stranger, who has not done anything for this boy, has become supreme. A conflict arises.

The same happens with the inner search: your mind is your inner family. Whenever you want to do something new, whenever you want to move into the unknown, the mind resists, the mind says: No, this is not good. The mind will find a thousand and one rationalizations, and it is going to give you a hard struggle. That is natural, so don’t be worried about it – it has to be so. But if you persist, you will become the master. Just perseverance, persistence is needed.

I SEIZE HIM WITH A TERRIFIC STRUGGLE.

But once you have seen the bull, the energy of your being, you can catch hold of it. Of course, it is going to be a struggle, because the mind has remained in power so long:

HIS GREAT WILL AND POWER ARE INEXHAUSTIBLE.

HE CHARGES TO THE HIGH PLATEAU

FAR ABOVE THE CLOUD-MISTS, OR IN AN IMPENETRABLE RAVINE HE STANDS.

And this energy, this bull, is inexhaustible. Sometimes it is standing on the top of a hill, at a peak of experience. Sometimes in a valley, a deep ravine.

Once you become sensitive to the world around you, then your sensitivity can be turned towards the inside, towards your inner home. It is the same sensitivity with which you hear a nightingale sing, with which you feel the warmth of the sun, with which you smell the fragrance of a flower. It is the same sensitivity that now has to be turned withinwards. With the same sensitivity you are going to taste you, smell you, see you, touch you.

Use the world as a training for sensitivity. Always remember: if you can become more and more sensitive, everything is going to be absolutely right. Don’t become dull. Let all your senses be sharp, their tone sharp, alive, full of energy. And don’t be afraid of life. If you are afraid of life, then you become insensitive so nobody can hurt you.

Many people come to me and they say they would like to fall in love with someone, but they cannot because they are afraid they may be rejected. If somebody approaches them, they close themselves with the fear: Who knows, the other may create some trouble. Who knows, with the other some problem may arise. It is better to be sad and alone than to be happy together with someone, because that happiness may bring dangers.

Let me tell you one story:

Tired of being engaged, he decided to cancel it in a diplomatic manner.

”Darling,” he said one day, ”we were never meant to be mates. Our temperaments are too different. We will only be bickering and fighting.”

”Sweetheart,” she said, ”you have got the wrong idea. We love each other like two turtle doves.” ”Really, my darling, we’ll never agree, and between us there will always be friction.”
”No, it will be like Romeo and Juliet. I will be a perfect wife and we will never have a quarrel.” ”Darling, I’m telling you that there will never be anything but arguments between us.”

”But, sweetheart, I say....”

”See,” he yelled, ”what did I tell you? We are fighting already!”

People are afraid. If they move in any relationship, they may be rejected. If they move in any relationship, they may not prove adequate. If they move in any relationship, then their reality will surface and the masks will drop. They are afraid because the other may leave some day, so it is better not to get involved; otherwise it will hurt very much. Then they become insensitive. They move blindfolded in life – and then they ask: Where is God? God is all around. You need to be sensitive, and you can see the bull anywhere.

Behind each tree, and behind each rock, the bull is hiding. Touch with love and even the rock responds, and you can feel the bull there. Look lovingly at the stars and the stars respond; the bull is hidden there.

The bull is the energy of the total. You are part of it. If you are alive and sensitive, you can feel the whole.

The prose commentary:

HE DWELT IN THE FOREST A LONG TIME, BUT I CAUGHT HIM TODAY! INFATUATION FOR SCENERY INTERFERES WITH HIS DIRECTION. LONGING FOR SWEETER GRASS, HE WANDERS AWAY. HIS MIND STILL IS STUBBORN AND UNBRIDLED. IF I WISH HIM TO SUBMIT, I MUST RAISE MY WHIP.

Now there is a difficulty with the word whip. Ordinarily, the association comes to the mind as if you have to be very violent, you have to take the whip in your hands. But in Buddhism the whip is not a repressive symbol, not violent. The whip is simply awareness.

For example: if somebody suddenly comes with a sword to kill you, what happens? In that moment, mind stops. The sword flashes in your eyes, and the mind stops. The moment is so dangerous that you cannot afford the luxury of thinking. Suddenly there is a break: the mind is no longer there, and no-mind arises. In dangerous situations, spontaneously, meditation happens for a single moment. Again you will be back – but it happens suddenly. You are driving a car and there is going to be an accident; and a moment, just a moment before, you become aware that now an accident is going to happen – your brake is not working, or the car is slipping. In that moment all thought stops. Suddenly, you are in a state of meditation, awake, alert. That is the meaning of the whip.

In Zen monasteries, disciples meditate and the master goes on moving with a stick, his staff. And whenever he sees somebody dropping, falling into sleep, he hits hard on the head. A sudden jerk... energy becomes alert, a momentary glimpse. Sometimes satori has happened that way. The master hits hard; you were falling almost asleep... try to understand it. When you are falling asleep, you are on the threshold. From that threshold, two doors open: one door goes into sleep, another door goes into samadhi. That moment is very pregnant. Ordinarily you will fall asleep – your old routine. But you are on the threshold, and if at that time you can be made alert and aware, your life may have a glimpse of satori, samadhi.

Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, also says that deep sleep is like samadhi, with only one difference: the awareness is not there. In samadhi, you are as deep asleep as in any sleep, but you are alert. The whole mechanism is asleep; body, mind – both are asleep. But you are alert. So sometimes it has happened that a man was hit on the head by the master and he became enlightened. This is the whip of Zen.

IF I WISH HIM TO SUBMIT, I MUST RAISE MY WHIP.

The struggle is going to be difficult. One should be aware of it from the very beginning so that you don’t get disheartened on your journey. It is going to be difficult. Mind has a very negative attitude about your inner search; it is against it. And it is much easier to be against anything than to be for it. It is much easier to say no than to say yes – the mind is a no-sayer.

I have heard about one law expert, Clarence Darrow. He was a noted, world-famous criminal lawyer:

He had found himself on the dissenting side of arguments since youth. And now he was to debate with another attorney.

”Are you familiar with the subject?” he asked Darrow.
”No,” Darrow admitted.
”Then how can you engage in debate?”
”That’s easy,” said Darrow. ”I will take the negative side. I can argue against anything.”

It is very, very easy to argue against anything. No-saying comes easily to the mind. Once you say yes, things become difficult. No simply cuts the whole thing; there is no need to go any further. For example, if I tell you: Look, these trees are beautiful, and if you say yes, and I ask why – Why do you think these are beautiful? – it is going to be very difficult to prove. For thousands of years, philosophers have been thinking about what beauty is and nobody has yet been able to define it. So if I ask why, you will be in difficulty. But if you had said no then there would be no problem, because now it will be a problem for me – to prove that they are beautiful. You simply say no.

No is very economical. Yes is dangerous. But remember once you say no, you become less alive. A man who goes on saying no, no, no, becomes more and more insensitive. No is a poison – be alert. Try to say yes more, even if it is difficult – because with the yes the mind will lose its hold on you. With the no, the hold will become more and more strong.

And the mind is going to follow you to the very end. Only at the very end, just on the steps of the temple of God, does mind leave you – never before it. It goes on following you.

One businessman had died and gone to hell. He had hardly warmed up when he was slapped on the back by a hearty hand. Into his ear boomed the loud voice of a persistent salesman who had pestered him while on earth.

”Well,” laughed the salesman, ”I’m here for the appointment.” ”What appointment?”

”Don’t you remember?” the salesman asked. ”Every time I called on you at your office on earth you said you would see me here!”

Now they are in hell.... The mind will persistently follow you to the very end. It leaves only at the last moment. Hence the struggle is difficult – but not impossible. Difficult, but possible.

And once you have attained something of the no-mind, then you can see that whatsoever you have done was nothing compared to what you have got. You will feel as if you have not done anything – so precious is the innermost experience of finding your own energy, your life energy.

The last thing: the bull is always waiting for you. That bull is not somewhere outside you. The bull is your innermost core. Between the bull and you there is a big wall of mind, of thoughts. Thoughts are the bricks, transparent bricks made of glass. So you can see through them and you may not even be aware that there is a wall between you and reality.

I have heard that a fish one day asked the queen fish in an ocean, ”I have been hearing so much about the ocean, so much talk about the ocean – but where is this ocean?”

And the queen fish laughed and she said, ”You are born in that ocean, you are born out of that ocean, you live in that ocean. Right this moment you are in it and it is in you. And one day you will again disappear in the ocean.”

But the question seems relevant, because how can the fish know? – because the ocean has always been there, not missed for a single moment. It has been so obviously there, so naturally there, and so transparently there. One thing is certain: that the fish, the mind of a fish, is going to be the last thing to know anything about the ocean. So close, hence so distant. So obvious, hence so hidden. So much available, hence one is not aware of it.

Man also lives in an ocean of energy – the same energy inside, the same energy outside. You are born of it, you live in it, you will dissolve in it. And if you are missing it, it is not because it is very far away – you are missing it because it very close. You are missing it because you have never missed it. It has always been there. Just become more sensitive.

Listen to the nightingales more deeply. Listen to the trees, the music that surrounds you. Listen to everything, look at everything, touch everything with so much intensity and so much sensitivity that when you look at anything you become the eyes, when you hear anything you become the ears, you touch anything and you become the touch. And you are not stuck in any sense – all the senses merge into one. All the senses become one sensitivity... and suddenly you find you have always been in God, you have always been with God.

To me, the whole training is how to become more and more sensitive. Other religions have told you to become insensitive, to kill and destroy your sensitivity. I tell you to make life as intense as possible – because, finally, God is not separate from life. Being alive to life is being alive to God. And that is the only prayer; all other prayers are home-made, man-made. Sensitivity is the only prayer God-given.

Be alert, aware. Hear the song of the nightingale. Allow the sun to touch you and feel the warmth. Let the breeze not only pass by you but pass through you, so it goes on cleansing your heart. Look! WILLOWS ARE GREEN ALONG THE SHORE. HERE NO BULL CAN HIDE! It is impossible for God to hide. God is not hidden, only you live with blindfolds on your eyes. You are not blind! God is not hidden! Just blindfolds are on your eyes.... Those blindfolds are of thoughts, desires, imaginations, dreams, fictions – all fictions.

If you can drop fictions, if you can renounce fictions, suddenly you are in reality. So I don’t ask you to renounce the world, I ask you to renounce the dreams – that’s all. Only renounce that which you have not got. Only renounce that which is not really there in your hands; you simply imagine it is there. Renounce your dreams and reality is available.

The struggle is going to be a little hard because the mind will not be so easily convinced – because it is going to be the death of the mind. So that too is natural, that the mind will resist. The death of the mind is your life. And the life of the mind is your death. If you choose mind, you commit suicide as far as your inner being is concerned. If you choose your self, you will have to drop the mind.

And that is what meditation is all about. Enough for today.