Know Yourself - Meditate

Don't ask for some scripture to meditate on, scriptures are serious, and
meditation does not need any scriptures. Meditation is a state where absolute
emptiness exists, not even a scripture; there is not any possibility of any
object. A philosopher never meditates, a philosopher contemplates.
So I can give scriptures for contemplation, but not for meditation.
Because that will be absolutely wrong.
Meditation simply means silence -- absolute, unconditional serenity of the
heart, of the mind, of the being no stirring of any kind. Even a scripture is
enough of a disturbance.

But people have misunderstood even such a simple statement. I am
not saying, "Contemplate," I am not saying, "Think about Who am I?" --
what can you think? Either you know or you dont know; thinking is
impossible. What will you think? If you start you will think, "This is my name,
this is my country, this is my family, this is my race, this is my caste, this is
my profession." But what will you find by doing this? You will not find out
who you are. These things are all on the periphery.
By watching the mind, the whole process of the mind, the whole traffic of
thoughts. Even "Who am I?" is a thought; dont get stuck to it. Just watch
that thought too, and a moment comes when all thinking disappears -- just
by watching. Just as you bring light into a dark room and darkness
disappears, as you bring watchfulness to your mind, mind disappears.
And the disappearance of the mind is the beginning of knowing yourself.
This is the highest peak of consciousness, and unless a man achieves it, he
has wasted his life in trivia. He lived only in name; in fact he vegetated. He
may have been a very rich vegetable. They say there are only two kinds of
vegetables, cabbage and cauliflower; the cabbage category is uneducated,
and the cauliflower is a cabbage with college degrees. But there is not
much difference.
If you really want to live and not to vegetate, meditation is the only way;
and meditation means no-mind just silence.

Meditation is a natural state - which we have lost. It is a paradise lost,
but the paradise can be regained. Look into the childs eyes, look and
you will see tremendous silence, innocence. Each child comes with a
meditative state, but he has to be initiated into the ways of the society
- he has to be taught how to think, how to calculate, how to reason,
how to argue; he has to be taught words, language, concepts. And
slowly, slowly, he loses contact with his own innocence. He becomes
contaminated, polluted by the society. He becomes an efficient
mechanism; he is no longer a human being.

All that is needed is to regain that space once more. You had known it
before, so when for the first time you know meditation, you will be
surprised - because a great feeling will arise in you as if you have known
it before. And that feeling is true: you HAVE known it before. You have
forgotten. The diamond is lost in piles of rubbish. But if you can uncover
it, you will find the diamond again - it is yours.

It cannot really be lost; it can only be forgotten. We are born as
meditators, then we learn the ways of the mind. But our real nature
remains hidden somewhere deep down like an undercurrent. Any day, a
little digging, and you will find the source still flowing, the source of fresh
waters. And the greatest joy in life is to find it.

The thinking up to now has been that the individual exists for the society,
that the individual has to follow what the society dictates. The individual
has to fit with the society. That has become the definition of the normal
human being-one who fits with the society. Even if the society is insane,
you have to fit with it; then you are normal.

Now the problem for the individual is that nature demands one thing, and
society demands something contrary. If the society were demanding the
same as nature demands, there would be no conflict. We would have
remained in the Garden of Eden. The problem arises because society has
its own interests, which are not necessarily in tune with the interests of
the individual. Society has its own investments, and the individual has to
be sacrificed. This is a very topsy-turvy world. It should be just the other
way round. The individual does not exist for the society, the society exists
for the individual. Because society is just an institution, it has no soul. The
individual has the soul, is the conscious center.


				*Know Yourself - Meditate*