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| The
Conditions for Freedom
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What
are the conditions or requirements that are needed for freedom or
enlightenment? Truly speaking, there are no hard and fast rules or
conditions that you have to be fulfilled to be free. But I will cite
one example of a king.
When
the question of enlightenment comes I do not know why kings are always
mentioned. We have heard that in ancient times enlightenment was won
only by kings and not by workers. Vaishista was a king, Vishwamitra
was a king, Yagnavalka was a king, Gyanasruti was a king, Buddha was
a prince. There may be something in this because they have fulfilled
their vasanas and desires. Perhaps those who have not done
enough to fulfill their vasanas cannot renounce; they are addicted
to vasanas. Therefore we always hear that kings have won freedom:
Janaka was a king, Dasaratha was a king, Rama was a king, Krishna
was a king. It can be won by everyone but the story goes in favor
of the kings.
There
was a king who spoke to his wife, "My hairs are getting gray
now." In ancient times, when people were seeing gray hairs on
their head they rejected everything and went to the forest or to some
rishi's ashram to sit with him and to be free. This king was
very much attached to his wife, she to him. But on this morning he
said, "My dear queen, I will leave you now." "Why
are you going to leave me?" She asked, "You told me that
there is nothing else more beautiful than me. Didn't you say that?"
"Yes I did,"
the king replied. "Then why should you leave me now?"
And
he said, "My dear queen, my beloved one, my dear one, there is
something else that I cannot attain here with you on the throne. So
I leave you and I go." He did not listen to the queen's beseeching.
The
queen said, "I can teach you knowledge. I know that which you
want to learn and I can teach you. I did not speak on this matter
until now because the time was not ripe. You were young, you had vasanas,
and the time had not come; but now I can teach you."
Still
the king did not listen. He said, "What you can teach? What is
a woman going to teach me? I am going now. Here are the ministers
who are very able. They will help you in government. Here are the
treasures. I am giving you everything. I will go now."
This
queen had been going to satsang since childhood in her parents house,
and she was enlightened. But the king was not in a suitable condition
to listen to her instruction. It is most important that you be in
very good shape to be benefited by satsang. He didn't listen. He walked
out and went away and disappeared into the forest. The queen had also
learned yoga, so she sat in samadhi and her subtle body went
all over the place to find out where the king was sitting in meditation
looking for freedom. And she saw him living and meditating in a thatched
hut. So the queen thought, "This is the right time for me to
teach."
She
disappeared in the night and went in the disguise of a young sadhu
- dressed up as a sadhu, as a man. She declared that she belonged
to Vaikunth Loka. "I have come because you have rejected everything,"
she said. "I have come because you are a very serious seeker
of truth and I will teach you." He
was very happy. He prostrated before the sadhu and welcomed him, saying
that this was the time he needed a teacher. So every night she would
disappear from the palace and go and teach. The sadhu told a whole
story to him, how he was the king of a certain country, he had a queen
and everything but he rejected everything.
The
sadhu told the king, "Your renunciation is not yet complete because
what has to be renounced is not yet renounced. You renounced your
palace but instead here is a thatched hut. There's no difference between
a palace and a thatched hut. You have the same attachment now with
the thatched hut. Instead of your royal robes you are now wearing
this soiled robe of a renunciate." The king left the hut and threw off his robe, so he was standing
nude.
"Now
is my renunciation complete?" "Not
yet, not yet. Still you are attached to something, and with attachment,
freedom is not possible." "Only
the body is left," said the king. "Only my body is there,
so I am going to throw my body into the fire." "Wait,"
said the sadhu. "Wait. What harm has this poor body done to you?
You do not need to throw it away. Perhaps through this body you can
attain freedom. This body is inert. Why do you want to throw it away?
This is a beautiful chance for you to work through this body. Something
else has to be renounced, not the body. Even in your sleep you have
no body, still you are not enlightened and you are not free. During
sleep you do not see anybody, yet you are not free. Even at death
your body is cremated, yet you are not free. You have to renounce
that which has to be renounced."
The
king did not understand what has to be renounced. "You have to
renounce that through which you are renouncing everything, and through
which you think that you are going to have emancipation and wisdom.
That has to be renounced. What is that? Mind. The mind has to be renounced.
You did not do it when you were in the palace and also here you cannot
do without it. You have not won freedom living in the palace and also
here you are still bound. Until you renounce mind you cannot be free."
The
king agreed to do this, but how to do it? How is it possible to renounce
the mind? He did not know how to renounce the mind. So the sadhu taught
him. Every night this young sadhu appeared before him, spent the whole
night, and then flew back to the palace in the morning to attend to
the affairs of the court and the king. She had a very active day and
also a very active night. At night she was a guru; in the day she
was a queen.
She
told him what has to be done. She told him to sit quiet and she told
him how to get rid of this mind. "The mind is a vasana
- a desire. Whose desire? My desire. This mind is just a thought.
The prime thought, the first thought, is only the I thought. There
is no difference between I and mind. "I," ego, and mind
are all the same thing. So how is it possible to get rid of this I?
The king said, "How could I get rid of this I?
In
everything - in anything that you do - the I is always maintained.
Therefore there is no possibility of success. No one can win freedom,
whether he be in an ashram or working by himself alone on the heights
of the Himalayan mountains. The I is still maintained. I am meditating.
I am performing pilgrimages. I am doing all these things. I am chanting
such-and-such a formula. The I is still there. Unless this I
is killed there is no use of any sadana that you do."
This
young sadhu now told this yogi, "I will tell you a way how to
get rid of this mind in the shape of 'I.' Find out where this 'I'
is rising from. Question yourself, 'Where is this 'I' rising from?'"
"It is very difficult
to find," said the king. "It is very difficult because I
have never heard about this before. No one ever told me about it.
No one ever asked me to question where this 'I' is rising from."
We
are working with this question here every day. Some say that it is
very difficult, that they don't get it, they don't understand. A few
are able to do it for some time, and I am glad. But again, after a
week or so they say that the old tendencies come back. The whole-hearted
jignasa - the fire of desire for freedom that is needed - is
not there. It's only for fun's sake, reading some books and hearing
from so-called teachers, going to so-called centers in the world which
teach freedom. People are attracted there and sit with a teacher who
doesn't know himself - he is not free himself. He doesn't belong to
the tradition of gurus; neither did he have a guru, so he has no right
to speak on gyana - knowledge. You have to see the lineage
of the guru, to which lineage does the teacher belong? Otherwise you
are misled, misguided and lost forever.
Do
not waste your life this time, this human incarnation. It is very
difficult to maintain the desire for freedom in human life. Most human
beings are just two-legged animals, two-legged beasts interested only
in sex, food and sleep. This is what animals and man have in common:
food, sex and sleep. The only difference between animals and man is
that we have the option, we have discrimination, to utilize this blessed
human temple of God for the sake of freedom. We have had better sex
as a pig. We have had
better food as a wolf. If you overeat you have to go to the doctor
in the evening. We don't even have the stamina to eat that a wolf
does. And animals sleep much better that we do. Man has to use sleeping
pills and other drugs to be able to sleep.
Coming
back to the story, the king was slowly learned from the young sadhu
and he came to know the Truth. He said, "Respected guru, I prostrate
before for you. I searched, I have found the place where this 'I'
is rising from, and I don't see anything there."
This
is the experience of everyone who comes and sits in front at satsang.
Yesterday I received a letter from a girl was here and has now gone
back to Holland. She wanted some clarification. "I learned, and
I am practicing here also, but I don't find anything. I don't find
anything. I don't see anything. I just see that I am very happy in
this moment. Is this the right state or is there any mistake in this?"
Those
who have this experience have to stay a little longer so that they
do not forget it. Why not finish up the whole thing here and now?
It doesn't take time. You have come for this purpose and I am very
happy that we are here to share our experiences with each other. We
have to make sure that we are all happy so that we can go back home
and help our friends also. In this way this will spread through the
whole world like a wild fire. This is the right time. I am seeing
the result. One single person who goes from here is quite enough.
This
king told the sadhu, "I am very happy about what has occurred,
but what is freedom? What was this idea of freedom?" The
sadhu replied, "You have entertained a concept that you were
bound. You were bound so you wanted to be free. This is the direct
path to freedom where this concept of bondage has now vanished. When
the concept of bondage has vanished the concept of freedom also goes.
While walking barefoot in the forest we may be pricked by a thorn
in the foot. So we try to take another thorn to take the first thorn
out, and then we throw both of them away. In the same way, bondage
is only a concept. To remove this thorn we need another concept of
freedom. When the time comes that both the thorns are thrown away
we do not know anything, we do not know what happened. Now you will
have to put all your strength to not be recalled by habits which are
millions of years old. These old habits are also a concept. Where
do the habits go when you sleep? Then there are no old habits and
no new habits either. There is no bondage and also there is no freedom."
The
king was staying in this state and the sadhu was still waiting with
him. One week passed in this state and he was absolute blissful, in
a stateless state. So the sadhu came and asked him, "What more
do you want? What more do you need? This is freedom. Remain as this
wherever you are, even sitting in the palace with your queen. Isn't
this possible?"
"I
was very attached to my queen, and these attachments could not have
helped me," the king replied. "Therefore I had to reject
them all. I do not know if she could have taught me. She was a stupid
woman and said she could teach me knowledge. It's a good thing that
it was my good karma to be blessed by you, my satguru."
Then he prostrated again and again; he went around the sadhu many
times. The queen said to herself, "He's all right now."
and removed her disguise. She removed the appearance of sadhu and
became his queen and prostrated before the king. "Let us return
to our palace," she said. The
king wondered to himself, "Why I didn't listen to you then?"
He decided it didn't matter. The king and queen were both enlightened
and in constant satsang.
Yesterday
someone asked about harmonious life. A question arose in my house
about the harmonious life between a wife and husband, and we had a
discussion about this over lunch. Everyone is living in great fear.
A harmonious life means living together in wisdom, understanding our
relationship with our partners, with our friends, with our relations.
This can be called a harmonious life. We are here from all over the
world. Could there be any better bond of love between all of us? People
are living here as more than brothers with brothers, and sister with
sisters, and parents with parents. What better harmonious life could
there be than satsang? A harmonious life is only when both of
when
all of us have the same enterprise, the same thing, the same path,
the same goal. When we are always speaking about that: This is going
to be a harmonious life. There can be no other harmonious life in
the world than sitting in satsang, in great love with each other.
To
be prepared for satsang we have to be willing to reject all our past
vasanas. We know that our vasanas are finished because this desire
for freedom will come only once in a cycle. Not once in a life, once
in a cycle; which means 35 million years. Only then will this desire
for freedom arise; and whenever it comes make the best of it. Sit
down wherever you are so that this moment is not gone. Immediately,
this is the right time to win freedom. Do not postpone for the next
moment or for the next day. This is the right time - when this desire
arises - not that you read it in a book, not that you were told to
come, not that someone said, "I will give you enlightenment."
not that it was imposed on you. It has to come on its own. It has
to come from within. The wave has to rise from the ocean, not from
the desert. If it does come from the desert it is something else and
not actually the wave. Whenever this desire for freedom comes, sit
down where you are and keep quiet. This is the right time. 21 July, 1992
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