The trail without footprints

Transcending duality is a sovereign vision.
Mastering abstractions is royal practice.
The path of non-practice is the path of all Buddhas.
Whoever steps on this path reaches Buddhahood.
This world is transitory;
like ghosts and dreams he has no substance.
Renounce him, abandon your relatives,
cuts the bonds of lust and hatred,
and meditate in woods and mountains.
If, without effort,
remain unreservedly in a natural state,
soon Mahamudra will succeed,
and you will obtain non-attainment. 

There are two paths. One is the path of the warrior, of the soldier; the other is the king's way, the Royal Way. Yoga is the first, and Tantra is the second. Therefore, you need to know, first, what is the path of the soldier, of the warrior, and only then will you be able to understand what Tilopa means when referring to the Royal Way.

A soldier has to fight, inch by inch; a soldier must be aggressive, a soldier must be violent; the enemy must be destroyed, or conquered.

Yoga tries to create a conflict within you. It offers you a clear distinction between what is wrong and what is right, what is good and what is bad, what belongs to God and what belongs to the devil. And almost all religions, except Tantra, follow the path of Yoga. They divide reality and create an inner conflict; through that conflict, they continue.

For example, you hate yourself. The warrior's way is to destroy inner hatred. You feel anger, greed, sexual desire and millions of things - the warrior's way is to destroy everything that is wrong, negative, and to develop everything that is positive and right. Hate must be destroyed and love developed. Cholera must be completely destroyed and compassion created. Sex must move away and give way to brahmacharya, pure celibacy. Yoga immediately cuts you with a sword in two parts: right and wrong; and the right must overcome the wrong.

What will you do? Cholera is in you - what does Yoga suggest you do? Suggest that you create the habit of compassion, that you create the opposite, that you make it so habitual as to start functioning as a robot - hence the name of the soldier's path. Throughout the world, throughout history, the soldier has been trained for a robot existence: he has to create habits.

Habits work without awareness, they don't need perception; they can move without you. If you have habits - and everyone has them - you can see that. A man takes his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket - observes him - he may not be aware of what he is doing. Like a robot, it looks for the pocket. If he is intimately restless, his hand will immediately go to his pocket, take a cigarette, start smoking. You will certainly throw away the remaining part; he may have performed all these gestures without being aware that he was performing them.

We teach the soldier a robot existence. The soldier has to do and obey; you don't need to be conscious. When you are ordered to turn right, you must turn; you cannot think whether or not to turn, because if you start thinking, then it will be impossible, wars cannot continue in this world. Thinking is not necessary, nor is awareness necessary. The soldier must only have sufficient awareness to understand the orders; and it all. A minimum of perception: the order is given, and immediately, as a mechanism, he is carrying it out. Not that he turns to the left, when he is told to turn to the left - just listen and turn. It is not turning; cultivated that habit. It's just turning the light on or off - just a button and the light comes on. They say: - “Turn left!”, The button is pressed and the man moves to the left.

William James said that he was sitting in a cafe once and an old soldier from the reserve - on the reserve for over twenty years - was passing by with a basket of eggs. Suddenly, William Jones made a joke. He shouted "Attention!" and the poor man stopped, in the commanded position. The eggs fell out of his hand and broke. He was very angry, came running and said - "What kind of game is this?"

But William James argued: - “You don't have to obey. Everyone is free to shout 'attention'. You are not forced to answer. Who told you to answer? You should have followed your path. ”

He said to the man: - “This is not possible, because it is automatic. I've been out of the military for twenty years now, but the habit is deeply ingrained. ” Through many years of training, a conditioned reflex is created.

The expression “conditioned reflex” is a good one. It was created by a Russian psychologist, Pavlov. It says that you simply reflect; someone shoots something in your eyes, you don’t even think to blink or close your eyes, and they just close. A fly comes flying and closes its eyes; you do not need to think, there is no need: it is a conditioned reflex - it just happens. It is in the habits of your body, in your bones. It just happens! Nothing can be done about it.

The soldier is trained to exist as a robot. It must exist through conditioned reflexes. The same is true in Yoga. You get angry and Yoga says: - "Don't be angry, you better cultivate the opposite, compassion." Gradually, your energy begins to move in the habit of compassion. If you persevere for a long time, cholera will disappear completely and you will feel compassion. But you will be dead, not alive. You will be a robot, not a human being. You will have compassion, not because you have compassion, but only because you have cultivated a habit.

You can cultivate a bad habit and you can cultivate a good habit. One can cultivate the habit of smoking, another can cultivate the habit of not smoking; some cultivate the non-vegetarian style of eating, others cultivate the vegetarian style - but both cultivate and, in the final judgment, both are equal because they both live by habits.

This question must be considered very deeply, because it is very easy to cultivate a good habit, but it is very difficult to become good. And the substitute for a good habit is cheap, it can be achieved easily.

Now, particularly in Russia, they are developing a therapy: conditioned reflex therapy. They say that people cannot leave their habits. Someone has smoked for twenty years - how to expect him to quit? They can explain to you that it is bad, the doctors can tell you that it is, indeed, a dangerous situation, that can originate a cancer, but for twenty years of long habit and, now, it is ingrained; went to the deepest core of your body, it's in your metabolism. Even if you want to, even if you want to, even if you sincerely want to stop, it will be difficult for you to achieve it, because it is not a matter of sincere desire: twenty years of continuous practice - and it is almost impossible. So, what to do?

In Russia they say that there is no need to do anything and there is no need to explain anything. They developed a therapy: the man starts smoking and they give him an electric shock. Shock, the pain it causes, and smoking come together, become associated. For seven days, the man remains hospitalized and, whenever he starts smoking, immediately, automatically, he is given an electric shock. After seven days, the habit is broken. If you are persuaded to smoke, he will begin to tremble. The moment he holds a cigarette, his whole body trembles at the thought of shock.

They say, then, that he will never smoke again: they broke the habit by means of a harsh treatment, by means of shocks. But this man will not become a Buddha because he has lost an old habit through shock treatment. All habits can be modified through the treatment of shocks. Is he a Buddha? Enlightened? Why no longer have harmful habits? No. He won't even be a human being now - he'll be a mechanism. You will be afraid of things; he cannot do them because he has been given new habits of fear.

This is the full meaning of "hell": all religions have used shock treatments. Hell is nowhere, there is no "heaven". Both of these things are stratagems, old concepts of psychotherapy. They painted hell so horribly that a child has been afraid of him since the beginning of his childhood. Just mention the word hell and fear arises; she trembles. This is just a ploy to avoid bad habits. Thus, much pleasure, happiness, beauty and eternal life are promised in heaven, if you follow good standards. Everything when society says it is good, you have to follow. Heaven is there to help you towards positive things; and hell is there to keep you from going in the negative direction.

Tantra is the only religion that has not used such conditioned reflexes, because Tantra says that you must flourish as a perfectly awake being, not as a robot. So, if you understand Tantra, the habit will be bad; there are no bad habits, there are no good habits - the habit is bad. And you need to be awake so that there are no habits. You live, simply, moment by moment with full awareness, and not through habits. Living without habits: this is the Royal Way.

Why is it Regal? A soldier must obey, but a king does not have to do so. A king is above, gives orders; you don't take orders from anyone. A king never goes to fight, only soldiers go. A king is not a fighter. A king lives the most peaceful of all lives. This is just a metaphor. A soldier must obey; a king simply lives detached and natural; there is no one above him. Tantra says that there is no one above you. Whom do you have to follow, through whom should you organize your standard of living, through whom do you have to become an imitator? - there is nobody. Live a loose, natural, fluid life - the only thing is this: be perceptive.

By fighting, you will be able to acquire good habits, but they will be unnatural habits. People say that the habit is second nature. It may be, but remember the word "second". It is not natural; it may look like it, but it is not.

What difference is there between true compassion and cultivated compassion? True compassion is an answer - the situation and the answer. True compassion is always alive: something has happened and your heart flows towards it. A child falls and you run and help the child to get up; but that is an answer. A cultivated compassion, a false compassion, is just a reaction.

These two words are very significant: "answer" and "reaction". The answer is alive to the situation, whereas the reaction is just an ingrained habit: in the past, you have been trained to help someone who falls and simply help, but do not put your heart into it. Someone is drowning in the river, you run and help the person only because you were trained to do so. You remain out of the case, your heart is not there, you have not responded. You did not answer that man, that man who was drowning in the river. You responded to that moment, you followed an ideology.

Following an ideology is good: it helps everyone, become a servant of people, have compassion! You have an ideology, and you react through it. Action comes from the past; and is already dead. When the situation creates action and you respond in full awareness, only then will something beautiful happen to you.

If you react because of an ideology, old patterns of habits, you will gain nothing with your gesture. At most, you can win a small ego, which is not a gain at all. You can start boasting that you saved a man who was drowning in the river. You can go to the public square and shout loudly: - “Look! I saved another human life! ” You can gain a little more ego, for having done something good; but this is not a gain. You missed a great opportunity to be spontaneous, to be spontaneous in compassion. If you respond to the situation, then something blooms in you, a blossoming; and you will feel a certain silence, a stillness, a blessing.

 

Whenever there is an answer, you flourish inside.

Whenever there is a reaction, you remain dead;

you acted like a corpse, you acted like a robot.

The reaction is ugly, the answer is beautiful.

The reaction is always on the part,

the reaction is never at all.

The answer is always the whole,

your entire wholeness leaps into the river.

You don’t think about that,

the situation just makes it happen.

If your life becomes a life of response and spontaneity, one day you will become a Buddha. If your life becomes a life of reaction, of dead habits, you may look like a Buddha, but you will not become a Buddha. You will be a painted Buddha; inside you will be just a corpse. Habits kill life. Habits are against life.

Every day, as an acquired habit, you get up early; at five o'clock you are standing. In India, we see a lot of people doing this because, in India, for centuries, it has been taught that Brahmamuhurt, before the sun rises, it is the most auspicious moment, the sacred moment. And is. But you cannot make it a habit, because the sacred exists only in a living response. They get up at five, but you will never see on their faces the glory that comes when you get up early as an answer.

The whole life is waking up around you: the whole earth is waiting for the sun, the stars have disappeared. Everything is becoming more conscious! The land slept, the trees slept, the birds are ready to take flight. Everything is ready, a new day begins, a new celebration.

When that attitude is an answer, then you rise like a bird, whispering and singing; your feet dance. This is not a habit, it is not about having to get up; it is not such a thing to be in the scriptures that, being a Hindu devotee, you get up early in the morning. If you make a habit of it, you will not hear the birds, because the birds are not recorded in the scriptures. You will not see the sun rising, because it is not enough to rise - you are following dead discipline.

You may even be angry, you may even be against it because the night before you went to bed late and you are not feeling well to get up. It would be better if you slept a little longer. You weren't ready, you were fatigued. Or last night was not so good, you dreamed too much and your whole body feels lethargic - you would like to sleep a little more. But not; the scriptures pray like this and so you were taught from your earliest childhood ...

In my childhood, my grandfather was a morning supporter. I would get out of my sleep at about three o'clock - since then I haven't been able to get up early. He dragged me and I cursed him inside, but I could do nothing and went out with him for a walk; sleepy he had to walk beside him. So my grandfather destroyed all the beauty of dawn.

Whenever I had to go for a morning walk later, I couldn't forgive him. I always remembered him. He had destroyed everything; for years, he was continually dragging me - yet he did something good; I thought it was helping me to form a lifestyle. But this is not the right way: I am sleepy and he is dragging me. The path was beautiful, the morning was beautiful, but it destroyed all beauty, it stripped me. Only after many years was I able to recover and walk in the morning without remembering him. Before your memory was with me. Even after he died, he followed me, like a shadow, in the morning.

If you make getting up early a habit, if you do it as forced, then the morning becomes ugly. In that case it is better to continue to sleep. But be spontaneous! There are days when you will not be able to get up - there is nothing wrong with that, you are not committing a sin. If you feel sleepy, sleep is beautiful - as beautiful as any morning and as beautiful as sunrise, because sleep belongs to the Divine, just like the sun. If you feel like resting all day, that's good!

This is what Tantra says: Royal Way, that is, to act like a king, not like a soldier. There is no one above you to force you to give you orders; obeying shouldn't really be a lifestyle. That is the Royal Way. You must live moment by moment, enjoying moment by moment, and spontaneity must be the way. Why do you worry about tomorrow? This moment is enough. Live it! Live it in its entirety. Respond, but don't react. No habits - this is the formula.

I am not saying to live in chaos, but not to live through habits. Perhaps, just by living spontaneously, a way of life will evolve around you, but it will not be forced. If you like the morning every day, and for that pleasure you get up early not out of habit, then get up early every day and do it all your life, that will not be a habit. You are not forcing yourself to get up - it happens. This is beautiful, you enjoy it, you love it.

If it happens for love, it is not a style, it is not a habit, it is not a conditioning, it is not a dead, cultivated thing. Less habits, and you'll be more alive. No habit, and you will be completely alive. Habits surround you like a dead crust and you are closed by it; you are like a capsule, like a seed; a cell surrounds you and is tough. Be flexible.

Yoga teaches you to cultivate the opposite of all that is bad. Fight against evil and serve good. If there is violence, kill violence within yourself, become nonviolent, cultivate nonviolence. Always do the opposite and force it to become your standard. This is the soldier's way, a little teaching.

Tantra is the Great Teaching - the Supreme. What does Tantra say? Tantra says: do not create conflicts within yourself. It accepts both things because, through that acceptance, transcendence occurs; not a victory, but a transcendence. In Yoga, there are victories, in Tantra, no. In Tantra there is only transcendence. Not that you become nonviolent against violence; just go beyond both of these things, you simply become a third phenomenon - a witness.

I was sitting in a butcher shop once. The butcher was a very good man and I used to visit him. It was night and it was already closing when a man came and asked for a chicken. I knew, because a few minutes earlier he had told me that he had sold everything that day, that there was only one chicken left. So he was very happy. He went in, brought the chicken, threw it on the scale and said: - "It's five rupees."

The man said: - “Okay, but I'm going to have a party, many friends will come and this chicken looks very small. I would like to take one that is bigger. ”

Well, I knew there was no chicken anymore, that was the only one. The butcher meditated for a moment, took the chicken back to another compartment, stayed there for a while, came back, threw a chicken on the scale - the same one - and said: - "It's seven rupees."

The man said: - “You know what? I'll take both. ”

So the butcher was really embarrassed.

And Tantra causes the same embarrassment to the Whole, to Existence itself. Tantra says: I will take both.

There are not two. Hatred is but the other aspect of love. And cholera is nothing but the other aspect of compassion. And violence is nothing but the other side of nonviolence. Tantra says: - “You know what? I'll take both. I accept both. ” And suddenly, through that acceptance, there is a transcendence, because there are no two things. Violence and non-violence are not two things. Cholera and compassion are not two. Love and hate are not two.

That is why you know, you observe, but you are so unconscious that you do not recognize the fact. Your love turns to hate within a second. How is it possible that there are two? Not even a second is necessary: ​​in this moment you love and, in the next moment, you hate the same person. In the morning you love the same person, in the afternoon you hate it, at night you love it again. In fact, love and hate are not the right words: hate-love, anger-compassion - they are one phenomenon and not two. That is why love becomes hate and hate can become love; cholera can become compassion and compassion can become cholera.

Tantra says that from the moment your mind establishes division, you start to fight. You create division first: you condemn one aspect and appreciate another. You create the division first, then the conflict and you are disturbed. And you will be disturbed. A yogi is constantly upset because everything he does does not produce the final victory; at most, your victory may be temporary.

You can repress cholera and act compassionately, but you know that you repressed it into the unconscious and that it is there; at any moment, a little carelessness and it will bubble, it will surface. That is why it is always necessary to repress it. It is so ugly to be always repressing negative things - your whole life is wasted. When will you enjoy the Divine? You have no space, no time. You are fighting cholera, greed, sex, jealousy and a thousand other things. These thousand enemies are there; you have to be constantly alert, you can never relax. How is it possible that you are detached and natural? You will always be tense, exhausted, always ready to fight, always afraid.

Yogis become fearful even of sleeping, because while sleeping, they cannot be aware. In sleep, everything they repressed comes to the surface. They may have achieved celibacy while they are awake, but in dreams it is impossible - in dreams beautiful women appear, floating into them. And they can do nothing. Those beautiful women are not coming from heaven, as it is written in Hindu stories: God sent them. Why would God be interested in the yogi? A poor yogi, doing no harm to anyone, just sitting in the Himalayas, eyes closed, fighting his own problems - why would God be interested in him? And why would he send Him apsaras, beautiful women, to get you out of your way? Why? There is no one there. There is no need for anyone to send anyone. The yogi is creating his own dreams.

Everything you repress comes up in dreams. Dreams are the part that the yogi has denied. And your hours that pass are as yours as your dreams are yours. So whether you love a woman during your waking hour, or love her during sleep, there is no difference; nor can there be, because it is not a question of whether there really is a woman there or not; it is a question that concerns yourself. Whether you love a figure, a dream figure, or whether you love a real woman, there is really no difference - a real woman is also a figure, inside. You never really know a woman, you only know the figure.

I'm here. How do you know I'm really here? Maybe it's just a dream, maybe I'm dreaming that I'm here. What will be the difference, if you dream that I am here or if you really see me here? How will you make the distinction? What is the criterion? Because, whether I am here or not, it makes no difference: you see me inside your mind. In both cases - dream or reality - your eyes receive the rays, your mind interprets and says that there is someone there. You have never seen a real person; you cannot see them.

That is why Hindus say that this world is maya, an illusory world. Tilopa says: “Transitional, ghostly, spectral, visionary is this world. Why? Because, between dream and reality, there is no difference. In both cases, you are confined to your mind. You see only the figures; you have never seen reality - and you cannot even see it, because reality can only be seen when you are real. If you are a spectral phenomenon, a shadow, how can you see what is real? The shadow can only see the shadow. You will be able to see reality only when the mind is abandoned. Through the mind everything becomes unreal. The mind designs, creates, gives color, interprets - everything forms false. Hence the emphasis, the continued emphasis on how to let go of the mind.

Tantra says: don't fight. If you fight, you will be able to continue your fight for many lives and nothing will happen that way, because, in the first place, you made a mistake - where you saw two, there was only one. And if you miss the first step, you won't be able to reach the goal without it. Your entire passage will be a continuous loss. The first step must be taken with absolute certainty; otherwise you will never reach the goal.

And what is absolutely right? Tantra says it's seeing one in two, seeing one in many. The moment you see one in duality, transcendence will have already begun. This is the Royal Way.

Now we will try to understand the sutra.

Transcending duality is a sovereign vision.

Transcend, not win - transcend. That word is very beautiful. What does it mean to transcend?

He watches a small child playing with his toys. You tell her to keep them and she gets angry. Even when she goes to sleep she takes her toys and the mother has to remove them after she falls asleep. In the morning, the first thing you ask is where are your toys and who took them from there. Even your dream is about toys. Then, suddenly, one day, the child forgets the toys. For a few days, they remain in a corner of your room and are then removed or thrown away. She never asks where they are again. What happened? She has transcended them; became mature. It was not a fight and a victory; there was no fight against the desire to have toys. No. Suddenly, one day, she realized that it was childish, that she was no longer a child. Suddenly, he realized that toys are toys, not real life; and that she was ready for real life. He turned his back on the toys. Never again did they appear in your dreams, never thought of them again. And when he sees other children playing with toys, he smiles; I smiles, a laugh from those who know, a wise laugh. It says: - "It is a child, still a child, playing with toys." She has transcended.

Transcendence is a very spontaneous phenomenon. It should not be cultivated. You just mature. You see, quite simply, how absurd certain things are ... and transcend.

A young man approached me, very concerned. He had a beautiful wife, but the girl had a rather long nose. He was worried and asked me: - "What to do?" Even plastic surgery had already been tried, but the nose had gotten a little uglier, because there was nothing wrong with it and, when we try to improve something that has nothing wrong, that something becomes ugly, uglier; it becomes a disorder. Now the boy was more upset and asked me what to do.

I told him about the toys, saying: - “One day you will have to transcend. That's childish - why are you so obsessed with a nose? The nose is just a tiny part and your wife is beautiful, such a beautiful person - why are you saddened by the nose issue? She also became vulnerable about the nose. And that nose turned out to be the whole problem of life. And all problems are like that! Don't think that your problem is something bigger - all problems are the same as yours. All problems are created by childishness, youthfulness; they are born of immaturity.

The young man was so worried about his nose that he didn't even look at his wife's face, because every time he saw his nose, he felt disturbed. Indeed, we cannot overcome certain things so easily. Even if you don't look at a face because of your nose, you will still remember that nose. Even if you try to escape, the case is there. You're obsessed. So I told him to meditate on his wife's nose.

He said: - “What? I can't even look at him. ”

But I replied: - “This will help; simply meditate on the nose. In the past, people used to meditate on the bridge of their own noses; therefore, what is wrong with meditating on the tip of your wife's nose? Try it! ”

He asked: - "But what will come of this meditation?"

“Just try,” I said, “and after a few months, come and tell me what happened. Each day, make her sit in front of you and start meditating on her nose. ”

One day she came running to me and said: - “What nonsense I've been doing! Suddenly, I transcended. All the madness of that became visible - now there is no problem. ”

He was not victorious, because, in fact, there was no enemy to be overcome. You have no enemies - that is what Tantra says. Your whole life is deeply loving towards you. There is no one to be destroyed, no one to be won; nobody is an enemy, there is no disaffection for you. All life loves you. Love flows from everywhere.

And in your heart there are also no enemies; enemies were created by priests, they created a battlefield, turned you into a battlefield. They say: - Fight this, this is bad! They have created so many enemies that you are surrounded by them and have lost touch with all the beauty of life.

I tell you: cholera is not your enemy, greed is not your enemy and neither is compassion your friend, nor is nonviolence your friend - because, friends or enemies, you remain with duality.

Just look at the whole of your being and you will see that it is one. When the enemy becomes a friend and the friend becomes an enemy, all duality is broken. Suddenly, there is transcendence, suddenly there is waking up. And I tell you, this is sudden; when you fight, you have to fight inch by inch, but this is not a fight at all. That is the way of kings - the Royal Way.

Tilopa says: “Transcending duality is a sovereign vision.” Transcend duality!

Just observe, and you will see that there is no duality.

Bodhidharma went to China, one of the rarest jewels ever born. The King came to see him and said: - “Sometimes I feel very disturbed. Sometimes there is a lot of tension and a lot of anguish in me. ”

Bodhidharma looked at him and said: - “Come tomorrow morning, at four o'clock, and bring all your anguish, anxieties, disturbances with you. Remember, don't come alone - bring them all.

The King looked at Bodhidharma - who looked very strange, capable of killing someone with fear - and said: - “What are you saying? What does it mean what you said? ”

Bodhidharma said: - “If you don't bring me these things, how can I put you in good shape? Bring them all and everything will be settled. ”

The King thought: - “It is better not to go. At four o'clock in the morning it's still dark and this man looks a little crazy. With that big staff in your hand, you could even hit me. And what does he mean when he talks about getting everything right? ”

He couldn't sleep all night, because the figure of Bodhidharma was chasing him. In the morning he felt it would be better to go, “because, who knows? Maybe he can do something. ”

So he went, muttering, hesitantly, but he got there. The first thing Bodhidharma asked - and he was sitting in front of the temple, staff in hand, looking even more dangerous in the dark - was: - “So you came! Where are those others you spoke to me about? ”

The King said: - “You speak through riddles; there is nothing I could bring. They are inside me. ”

Said Bodhidharma: - “Very well. Inside and out, things are things. Sit down, close your eyes and try to look for them inside. Grab them immediately, let me know and look at my staff. I'll get it right with them! ”

The King closed his eyes - there was nothing he could do - so he closed his eyes, somewhat frightened; he looked in, here and there, he observed, and suddenly he became aware that the more he looked, he saw nothing - neither anxiety, nor anguish, nor disturbance. He fell into deep meditation. Hours passed, the sun began to rise and there was a tremendous silence on his face.

Then Bodhidharma said to him, "Open your eyes now. That is enough! Where are those things? Were you able to grab them? ”

The King smiled, bowed, touched Bodhidharma's feet, and said: - “You really got them right, because I didn't find them and now I know what was going on. First, they were not there. I thought they existed because I never went inside myself to look at them. They were there because I was not there. Now I know; you did the miracle. ”

And that is what happened. This is transcendence; before solving a problem, first check if there is even a problem. First you create the problem and then you start looking for a solution. First you create the question and then you go around the world and I know that if you look at the question, it will disappear; there will be no need for an answer. If you look at the question, the question will disappear - and that is transcendence. It is not a solution, as there is no question to be answered. You are not sick. Observe internally and you will not find the disease: so, what need is there for a solution?

Each man is as he should be.

Each man is born as a king.

It lacks nothing,

need not improve.

And people who try to improve you destroy you; they are the true makers of evil. And there are many that remain lurking, like cats lurking mice: you approach, they jump on you and immediately start improving you. There are many better ones, that is why the world is in such chaos; there are too many people trying to improve you.

Don't let anyone improve you.

You are already the last word.

You are not only the alpha, you are also the omega.

You are complete, perfect.

Even if you feel imperfect, remember that Tantra says that imperfection is perfect. You don't have to worry about that. It will seem very strange to say that your imperfection is also perfect, that nothing is missing. In fact, you seem imperfect, not because you are imperfect, but because you are growing perfection. This seems absurd, illogical, because we think that perfection cannot grow; because we imagine perfection as that which has reached the last point of growth - but that perfection is dead. If it cannot grow, perfection is dead.

God keeps growing, because he is not perfect that way, that of not needing to grow. He is perfect because he lacks nothing, but goes from one perfection to another, growing without ceasing - God is evolution, not from imperfection, to perfection, but from perfection to greater perfection, to even greater perfection.

When perfection has no future, it is dead. When perfection has a future, an opening, a growth, still a movement, then it becomes like imperfection. And I would like to tell you: be imperfect and growing, because that is life. And don't try to be perfect, otherwise you'll stop growing. Then you will be, like a Buddha statue, dead stone.

Because of this phenomenon - the perfection that continues to grow - you feel imperfect. Let it be so. Allow it to be so. This is the Royal Way.

Transcending duality is a sovereign vision;

mastering abstractions is royal practice.

Abstractions exist; you will lose your conscience many, many times. You meditate, you sit for meditation, a thought arises and immediately you forget yourself, you follow the thought, you are surrounded by it. Tantra says that there is only one thing to be mastered - abstraction.

How? Only in one way: when a thought comes, keep yourself a witness. Face it, allow it to pass through your being, but do not attach yourself in any way to it, for or against. It can be a bad thought, a thought aimed at killing someone - don't put it back, don't say: this is a bad thought. The moment you say something about a thought, you connect with it and fall into the abstraction. That thought can lead you to many things, from one thought to another. A good thought comes, a compassionate thought; don't say, “Oh! How beautiful! I am a great saint. So beautiful thoughts are arising that I would like to give salvation to the whole world. I would like to release everyone. ” Do not say that. Good or bad, keep yourself as a witness.

Even so, at first, you will often be distracted. So, what to do? If you are absorbed, be absorbed. Do not worry too much about it, when not, it will become obsessive. Be distracted! For a few minutes you will remain absorbed and then, suddenly, you will remember: "I am distracted" and you will be back. Don't be depressed. Not days "it is not right to distract me", because you will be creating dualism again: bad and good. Distracted? Well, accept that and come back. Even with the distraction, don't create a conflict.

This is what Krishnamurti has always been saying. For that, it uses a paradoxical concept. It says that if you are inattentive, you must be attentively inattentive. That's right! Suddenly you discover that you were inattentive, you pay attention to that and you return to the starting point. Krishnamurti has not been understood by the fact that he follows the Royal Way. If he were a yogi, it would be very easily understood. That is why he says constantly that there is no method: on the Royal Road there is no method. He insists on saying that there is no technique: on the Royal Road there is no technique. He insists on saying that no scripture will help you: there is no scripture on the Royal Road.

Absorbed? The moment you remember, the moment you pay attention and discover that you were distracted, return! That is all! Do not create any conflict. Do not say it was bad, do not feel depressed, frustrated, because you have been abstracted again. There is nothing wrong with the distraction - enjoy that too.

If you can enjoy abstraction, it will happen less and less. And a day will come when there will be no abstraction - but it will not be a victory. You have not pushed the threads of your mind's distraction into the depth of the unconscious. No. You allowed them to come. They are also good.

This is the way of Tantra, which says that everything is good and sacred. Even if there is abstraction, distraction, in a way it is necessary. You may not be aware of why this need exists, however it exists. If you can feel good about everything that happens, only then will you be following the Royal Road. If you start fighting anything, it is because you left the Royal Road and became an ordinary soldier, a warrior.

Understanding duality is a sovereign vision;

mastering abstractions is royal practice;

the trail of non-practice is the path of all Buddhas.

Nothing should be practiced, because practice creates habits. We need to become more aware, not more practicing. The beautiful happens through spontaneous and not through practice. You can practice love, you can receive training for love. In America, there are plans to create some training courses for love, because people have even forgotten how to love. It is something really strange! Even animals, birds and trees don't ask anyone, they don't go to any school and they love it. And many people look for me ...

Just a few days ago, a young man wrote me a letter. It said: - “I understand; but how do you love? How to proceed? How do I get close to a woman? ” It seems ridiculous that we have completely lost the detached and natural path. Even love is not possible without training. And if you are trained, you will become repulsive, because then everything you do will be part of the training. It won't be true; it will be a representation. It won't be real life; it will be as if they were actors.

Actors create love, represent love scenes, but have you noticed that actors are failures when it comes to love? Their love lives are often a failure. Theoretically this should not happen, because for twenty-four hours a day they practice love. With so many women, with so many stories, in different ways they practice love; they are professional lovers and should be perfect when they fall in love, but when they do, they almost always become failures.

The love lives of actors and actresses are always failures. Why? It is practice; they practiced too much and now the heart cannot function. They simply continue to make mechanical gestures; kiss, but without kissing; only the lips come together. Only the lips come together and there is no transfer of energy there, your lips are closed, cold. And if the lips are cold, the kiss is repulsive, unhygienic. It is just the transfer of millions of germs, diseases, cells - and that's it.

The kiss is repulsive, if the inner energy is not present. You can hug a woman, or a man - the bones meet, the bodies clash, but there is no transfer of the inner energy. The energy is not present. Just moving through mechanical gestures. You can even make love. You can fulfill all the gestures of love, but that will be more of a gymnastics than of love.

Remember: practice kills life. Life is more alive when not practiced. When it flows in all directions, without any scheme, without any forced discipline, then it finds its own order, its own discipline.

The path of non-practice is the path of all Buddhas;

whoever steps on this path reaches Buddhahood.

So, what to do? If non-practice is the way, then what to do? Just live spontaneously. What fear is that? Why are you so afraid of living spontaneously? Of course, there can be dangers, risks - but that's a good thing! Life is not like a railroad track, with trains always moving on the same track, maneuvering. Life is like a river: it creates its own path; it is not a channel. A channel is useless; a channel is a life of habits. The danger exists, but the danger is life, it is involved in life. Only the dead are beyond danger. That is why people become dead.

Your houses are more like graves. You are too concerned with security. And excessive concern about security kills, because life is insecure. So it is! Nothing can be done about it; nobody can make life safe. All securities are false, all securities are imaginary. A woman loves you today, tomorrow - who knows? How can you be sure of tomorrow? To be able to go to court and register, establish a legal bond that says that she will also remain tomorrow as your wife. She may remain your wife, because of the legal bond, but love can disappear. Love knows no legality. And when love disappears, the wife remains the wife and the husband remains the husband, so there is a climate of death between them.

Because of security, we created the wedding. Because of security, we created society. Because of security, we always move on the channeled path.

Life is wild.

Love is wild.

And God is absolutely wild.

He will never enter your gardens, because they are too human. He will not come to your houses, as they are too small. He will never be found in your channeled ways. He's wild.

Remember: Tantra says that life is wild. We have to live among all dangers, among all risks - and it is beautiful, because there is adventure there. Do not try to make your life a fixed scheme; let it take its own course. Accept everything, transcend duality through acceptance, allow life to take its own course - and you will arrive, surely you will. This "all certainty" I say not to make you safe, but because it is a fact; that is why I say it. It is not your certainty of security. Those who are wild always reach it.

Transitional is this world:

Like ghosts and dreams, it has no substance.

Renounce him and abandon your peers,

cuts the bonds of lust and hatred,

and meditate in woods and mountains.

If, without effort,

remain unreservedly in a natural state,

soon Mahamudra you will reach

and you will obtain non-acquisition, non-acquisition.

This sutra must be very deeply understood, because it is possible that you are wrong. There have been many misunderstandings regarding this Tilopa sutra. Everyone who commented on it in front of me missed the essential point. There is a reason. This sutra says: Transitional is this world; this world is made of the same material with which dreams are made. Between dreams and this world there is no difference. Walking or sleeping, you live in a dream world owned by you. Remember: there is no world; there are many worlds, as many as there are people. Each of them lives in their own world. Sometimes our worlds meet and clash, sometimes they merge, but we remain closed in our own worlds.

Transient is this world [created by the mind],

Like ghosts and dreams, it has no substance.

This is what physicists also say. It has no substance. Matter has completely disappeared from the vocabulary of physicists in the past thirty or forty years. Seventy or seventy-five years ago, Nietzsche declared: - "God is dead." And he said this to emphasize that only matter existed - and the century was not yet over. Exactly twenty-five years after Nietzsche's death - he died in 1900 -, in 1925, physicists understood that we know nothing about God, but one thing we are certain of: matter is dead. There is nothing material around us, everything is just vibrations, intertwined vibrations that create the illusion of matter.

It is like in the cinema: there is nothing on the screen, only electric lights intersecting and creating a world of illusion. And there are already three-dimensional films: they perfectly create an illusion of three-dimensionality. Just like a film on the screen is the world, because it is all an electrical phenomenon; only you are real, only the witness is real, everything else is a dream. And the state and Buddha arises when you transcend all those dreams and nothing remains to be seen: only what you saw is sitting, silent. There is nothing, there is no object to be seen; only what you saw was left - then you got Buddhahood, reality.

Transitional is this world:

Like ghosts and dreams, it has no substance.

Renounce him and abandon your relatives ...

These words: "Renounce him and abandon your relatives" were misunderstood. There was a reason for this; everyone who didn't understand them was a renunciate and thought that Tilopa was talking about what they believed in. But Tilopa could not say such a thing, because it goes against all his views. If the world is like a dream, what does it mean to renounce it? You can give up reality, but you cannot give up a dream - it would be too foolish. You can renounce a substantial world, but you cannot renounce a ghost world. In the morning, go up to the top of your house, call everyone who is nearby and declare: - “I renounced my dreams! Last night I had too many dreams and gave up on them. ” Whoever hears you will laugh; everyone will think you have gone mad - no one renounces dreams. Everyone just wakes up; no one renounces dreams.

A Zen Master woke up one morning and said to one of his disciples: - “I had a dream last night. Do you want to interpret it for me, tell me what it means? ”

The disciple said: - “Wait! Let me bring you a cup of tea. ”

The Master took the cup of tea and asked: - "And now, the dream?"

Said the disciple: - “Forget about it, because a dream is a dream and does not need interpretation. A cup of tea is enough interpretation - wake up! ”

The Master said: - “Okay, absolutely right! If you had interpreted my dream, I would expel you from my monastery, because only fools interpret dreams. You did well; otherwise, you would definitely have been expelled and I would never look at your face again. ”

When you have a dream, what you need is a cup of tea and an end of conversation. Freud, Jung and Adler would be very concerned if they heard this story, because they wasted their entire lives worried if they heard this story, because they wasted their entire lives interpreting other people's dreams. A dream has to be transcended. Simply knowing that it is a dream, you transcend it - that is the renounce.

Tilopa has been misinterpreted because there are too many renunciates in the world who are condemning. They thought he was saying to renounce the world. That was not what he was saying. He said: - “Learn that he is transitory; this is renunciation. ” “Renounce him” - says Tilopa and means: learn that he is a dream.

Abandon your relatives - and they thought he was saying: - "Leave your family, your relationships, your mother, your father, your children." No, he wasn't saying that, he couldn't say that; it is impossible for Tilopa to say such a thing. You must not think that someone is your wife, because that "being mine" is a ghost, a dream. You should not say: - "This child is my son", because that "being mine", that "mine" is a dream. Nobody is yours, nobody can be yours. Renounce those attitudes that say someone is yours - husband, wife, friend, enemy; renounces all these attitudes. Do not build bridges: "mine", "yours" - put those words aside.

If you put those words aside, you will renounce your relatives: nobody is yours. This does not mean that you should escape, that you should run away from your wife, because if you run away, you will show that you think she is substantial. Running away will always show that you still think she is yours, otherwise, why do you run away?

This happened: a Hindu Sannyasin, Swami Ramteerth, returned from America. He was in the Himalayas and his wife came to see him, which disturbed him a little. His disciple, a very keen person, Sardar Poorn Singh, was sitting next to him. He observed and felt that Swami was disturbed. When his wife was gone, Ramteerth suddenly took off his orange robes. Poorn asked: - “What is it? I was watching and I saw that you were a little disturbed; I felt that you were not yourself. ”

The other replied: - “That's why I'm pulling these clothes off. I met so many women and never got upset. There is nothing special about this woman - unless she is my wife. This "mine" is still present. I am not worthy to wear these clothes. I did not renounce "mine", I renounced only the wife. The wife is not the problem; no other woman has disturbed me, but my wife arrives - an ordinary woman like any other - and suddenly I am disturbed. The bridge is still there. ” He died dressed in ordinary clothes, he never wore orange ones. It said: - "I am not worthy."

Tilopa will not say that you renounce your wife, your son, your relatives. No. He is saying that you renounce bridges, that you leave them and that is your problem, it has nothing to do with your wife. If she continues to think of you as her husband, it is her problem, not yours. If the child continues to think that you are his father, that is not a problem, he is a child who needs to mature.

I tell you, Tilopa refers to the renunciation of inner dreams, of bridges, of the inner world.

... and meditate in woods and mountains.

And with that, he is also not saying to flee to the woods and mountains. There were those who interpreted it that way and many fled their wives and children and went to the mountains - absolutely wrong. What Tilopa is saying is more profound, not so superficial, because you can go to the mountain and stay in the public square. The question is your mind. You can sit in the Himalayas and think about the public square, your wife, your children and what will be happening to them.

This happened: a man renounced his wife, children and family and came to Tilopa to be initiated as his disciple. Tilopa was interning at a temple outside the city. The man came. When he entered he was alone and Tilopa was also alone. Tilopa looked around him and said: - "You came, okay, but why the crowd?" The man also looked back, because there was no one there. Tilopa said: - “Don't look back! Look inside! - the crowd is there. ” The man closed his eyes and the crowd was there: his wife was still crying, her children were crying and sad, they had remained on the border of the city, the point where they had accompanied him - friends, family, other people, everyone was there. And Tilopa said: - “Go away; leaves the crowd. I start people, not crowds. ”

No; Tilopa will not say that you renounce the world and go to the mountain. He's not that silly. You can't say that - he's an Awakened man. What he means is this: that you renounce your dreams, bridges, relationships - not relationships; if you renounce your mind, you will suddenly find yourself in the woods and mountains. Suddenly, you are alone. Only you are there, no one else.

You can be in the crowd and alone, and you can be alone and in the crowd. You can be in the world, and not be of the world. You can be in the world, and belong to the woods and mountains.

This is an inner phenomenon. There are forests and mountains inland; Tilopa cannot say anything about mountains and outer forests, because they are also dreams. A Himalayas is a dream, just like the market square in Poona, because a Himalayas is an external phenomenon, as is the market square. The woods are also dreams. You have to go inside - that's where the reality is. You have to go deeper and deeper into your being; then you will reach the real Himalayas, you will reach the true forests of your being, you will reach the peaks and valleys of your being, the heights and depths of your being. Tilopa means:

If, without effort,

remain unreservedly in a natural state,

And that is the meaning, because it is part of the detached and natural state. Running away from your wife and children is not natural, it is not, at all, to be detached. A man who leaves his wife, children, friends and the world becomes tense, cannot be let go. By the simple effort of resignation, tension appears.

Being natural means staying where you are. Being natural, that is: wherever you are, stay. If you're a husband, that's fine; if you are a wife, how beautiful; if you're a hand, that's right, it has to be that way. Accept whatever it is, wherever you are and whatever happens to you; only then can you be detached and natural; otherwise it will be impossible for you to be. Your so-called monks, sadhus, people who have fled the world, are, in fact, cowards who are sitting in their monasteries; they cannot be detached and natural, they must be tense; they did something that is not natural; were against the natural flow.

Yes, for some people it may be natural. So I am not saying you should force yourself to be in the marketplace, because then you will go to the other extreme and do the same nonsense again. For some people it is entirely natural to be in a monastery; then, they have to be in a monastery. For some people it may be entirely natural to go to the mountains and they are to the mountains. What should be remembered, as a criterion, is to be detached and natural. If you're natural on the market, great. The market is also Divine. If you feel detached and natural in the Himalayas, great. There is nothing wrong with that. Just remember one thing: be detached and natural. Don't force it! And do not want to create tension within your being. Relax.

... soon Mahamudra will reach ...

Remaining detached and natural, you will soon reach orgasmic climax with Existence.

... and you will obtain non-achievement.

And you will achieve what cannot be achieved. Why? Why say it cannot be achieved? Because it cannot be turned into an objective. It cannot be achieved by an objective-oriented mind. It cannot be reached by the attaining mind.

There are many people here who follow the attaining mind line. They are tense, because they have made a goal of what cannot be made a goal. It happens to you! - and you can't reach it. You cannot reach him - he comes to you. You can only be passive, detached and natural and wait for the right time, because everything has its proper season. Why are you in a hurry? If you are in a hurry, you are tense and in constant expectation.

That's why Tilopa says: ... and you will obtain non-attainment. It is not a goal. What you wish to obtain cannot be made a target; you can't go to him like an arrow, no. The mind, aimed at a target, is a tense mind.

Suddenly, when you are ready;

not even the footsteps will be heard.

Suddenly enough.

You are not even aware that it is coming.

It blossomed.

Suddenly, you see the flowering

and you are full of fragrance.

- OSHO