Sex, Death And Meditation

Sex, meditation and death: when I chose this title, one of my ashram residents was sitting next to me. I was selecting titles for the discourses to be given in America. When I chose this title, she commented, 'Master, these are totally contradictory words forming a title. How can you talk about them in the same discourse?'

I gave her the explanation as to why they are all combined together. Of course, even after the explanation, when we hear the title we will feel that these are totally contradictory words.

When all three are impure, they are totally opposite to each other, contradictory to each other. When meditation starts happening in our lives, it can purify sex and death and ultimately combine all the three experiences into one. When we reach spiritual life which is the ultimate goal of any being, we will understand things differently. We will see all these three terms in three different planes. First, we will see how in an impure state these terms are contradictory to one another; then, when we add meditation, how they start complementing each other, and finally when meditation ends, how they become one with each other.

First, let us see how these three words and experiences that they connote, contradict each other; then, how they complement each other and finally, how they become one as they meet and merge.

The basic understanding as of now that we have of death is 'fear'. There is fear and greed but I will start from fear because we understand fear more clearly than greed; fear is a layer deeper than greed. We think that from greed fear appears. No! It is the other way around: from fear, greed appears.

'I' is the root of fear; 'mine' is the root of greed. 'I' is the ego: the being and the root of fear; 'mine' is the sense of possession. We say, 'this is mine, that is mine, this is my house, this is my car, this is my bungalow, these are my relations, these are my friends.' 'Mine' is the root of greed. 'I' is the root of fear. That is why the loss of the ego, the loss of 'I' seems so traumatic, so fearful.

So let me explain about death. The minute we hear the word death, what happens to us? The very word creates agony; the very word creates fear. The very word! Immediately we think: why should we talk about all this now? We will handle it when it arrives. Why should we think about this now? There is a deep fear in us where we think that just the very thinking will invite death to our homes!

In most cultures, death is not discussed openly. Youngsters are discouraged from talking about it. It is considered inauspicious. If there is any death in the family, the children are kept away. They are not allowed to be around for the funeral. I don't know whether it happens in this culture as well. Any kind of loss is pushed under a mental carpet! Something that is so natural, so normal in the larger cycle of life is turned into an abnormal, fearful thing.

Therefore from a very young age, we build an impression of death as a fearful enemy that must be kept at an arm's length. On the one hand, we long for happiness and freedom. On the other hand, we fear of letting go of all our alleged securities. This makes us build so many walls that we finally end up entombing ourselves.

If you are in a room and you know you have the keys to the room, you know that you are free to stay in the room as long as possible and leave it when you want to. However, if you do not know about the keys to the room, even when you are in the room willingly, you will always be afraid of being locked up with no means of going out. This is exactly what happens with us when we think that we need to escape from death, but do not know how to, and at the same time want to enjoy the freedom of life.

Please understand that unless we throw ourselves into the utter insecurity of Existence, we will never experience real freedom, real bliss.

As of now, our understanding about death is totally negative. Death is seen as an enemy. That is why, in all religions, in all cultures, death is painted as black. In Hinduism, Yama is black; in Christianity, Satan is black; in Buddhism, Mara is black. In all religions, death is painted in black. We paint death like a villain, never like a hero; death is always painted as a villain. The idea of death is always approached with negativity; we feel death takes away everything from us. Whatever we want, whatever we enjoy, whatever we have, is just snatched by force from us. We always want to escape death.

From time immemorial, all traditions, all civilizations have been trying all possible ways to conquer death. Scientists try through medicines, which is responsible for the birth and growth of allopathy.

Siddhas, the ayurvaidyas (traditional Hindu doctors), tried through herbs, which gave birth to the siddha tradition and kayakalpa (anti-ageing medicine). The yogis tried through mantras, which gave birth to the mrutyunjaya mantra (chat to overcome fear of death) and pranayama (breath control) techniques. The Lamas tried through meditation, which gave birth to our Mahamantra meditation technique to energize the heart energy center, anahata chakra. Almost all traditions, all cultures have tried to conquer death, to go beyond death. Why?

Why is all of humanity struggling against the one thing and that too, the only thing that is a certainty in all our lives? Can we make the whole earth flat? No! It is a proven fact that the earth is round. But if we struggle against this fact, then there is something wrong in our struggle, in our understanding. It is the same with death too. Why are we struggling to accept the truth when even after such a lot of struggle, not a single human being has been successful in mastering or overcoming death.

There was this person in Tamil Nadu, Bharat, who claimed to be a great spiritual figure. In Bharat, one needs nothing more than a few pamphlets to proclaim that one is a spiritual teacher! In other religions, one would need to get the agreement of the headquarters or the organizational president. In Hinduism, we don't need anything: just a small amount of money to print pamphlets is more than enough.

This man claimed that in the year 2000, the whole world would be destroyed. He predicted that he would be the sole human being who would survive the pralaya (final dissolution). Being a good orator, he convinced thousands of people about the impending doomsday through mass meetings and popular

media. He claimed that if they aligned with his preaching, they would be saved from this horrible fate that was sure to be theirs otherwise. What happened finally? One fine day, the papers carried the news that he had died! Instead of the world dying, he was dead!

What did this man do? He played with the emotions of people. He tried to exploit fear in people. He capitalized on their fear that was born out of ignorance. Almost every tradition, every religion and every science, be it allopathy, pranic healing, reiki, homeopathy, siddha, or ayurveda, have worked extensively on prolonging life. Why? Why are we so anti-death? Why are we so against death? It is because we have not understood the truth or the fact behind death. We have never given ourselves the time to look into it.

Our entire society lives in denial of this one glaring truth: that dying is as much a part of our lives as living! It is this deep fear, this painful insecurity, this constant denial that is responsible for the mushrooming of so many insurance companies all over the world! How can we plan for the next fifty years when we may not be around the next fifty seconds? I tell you, life insurance is not life insurance as we are led to believe. It is actually death insurance! It is insurance for others, so many of whom may actually be waiting for us to die!

A small joke:

Once, a family of three went to spend an evening on the beach; a couple with their child. The man went ahead into the waves and started walking further, enjoying the water rising and falling over his feet. After some time, the child started going towards the waves as well. The mother yelled out, 'Don't go into the waves! It is dangerous, you may be swept away!' The child was surprised that his mother was shouting at him. He asked his mother, 'Why don't you allow me to go into the water? Dad is going in!' His mother replied, 'Your dad has insurance!'

Instead of teaching us to live each moment completely, joyfully, without regrets, we are trained to run our life with the energy of fear. We are trained to postpone our experiencing of life in all its variety and beauty.

Every aspect of our lives, be it concerning material objects or relationships, comes with the need for security. We start possessing things and people. We believe that material things and people give us security. What happens if there is an earthquake and all our possessions, our house, cars, money and all our savings are destroyed? Where are our objects of security? What happens if there is an accident and we lose all our loved ones? Who will we turn to? We are terrified of loss and yet, we live our whole life clinging to impermanence.

We are all like small waves in the ocean of life. As long as the wave realizes that it is an integral part of the ocean, it can be a blissful part of the grand ocean. The problem is that each wave starts thinking of itself as separate from the ocean. Not only that, it also starts thinking of the ocean as its enemy. It then starts fighting with the ocean to maintain its so-called identity. The wave starts catching other waves and labeling them saying, 'You are my parents, you are my wife, and you are my son.' It then tries to protect itself and these waves from the ocean, little realizing that all the waves are created from the same ocean; that they exist in it, and finally will fall into the same ocean!

We invest all our trust and faith in perishables. Our ignorance of death blinds us to the one truth: that the

only constant thing in life is change and death is the greatest change of them all. Please understand that change is growth, and growth is life. If we start seeing death as change, then it stands to reason that it is growth, and therefore life! So what is there to be afraid of?

Once we decide that somebody is our enemy, we never look into his eyes. Whatever he does, we decide that he is doing so to agitate us. Even if he sits and has a cup of coffee or tea, we feel that he is plotting against us. Once we decide that somebody is our enemy, we don't want to have any contact with him. Similarly, once we decide that death is our enemy, we never look into it.

We are continually fighting death and in the end we just drop dead! We fight till we die. Our understanding about death, or rather our misunderstanding about death, makes death a fearful, frightening experience.

The man who resists death dies even while he lives, dies every moment because he is tortured by the very idea of death. When I say death, I don't mean only physical death. Losing anything is a form of death. Losing our comfortable life is one form of death; losing our relatives is another. Please understand that loss in any form is nothing but death.

We may ask why people are so depressed and disturbed when they lose their close relatives. Even if we are not emotionally attached to them, we are deeply affected by their death. We are more affected when we are close to them, attached to them emotionally. When our mother dies, our whole left side will suffer. When our father dies, our whole right side will suffer. The left side of the body is associated with the feminine energy while the right side is associated with the masculine energy. When our brothers die, our hands will suffer. There is a deep connection between us and our relatives. Every part of our body is connected to someone or the other.

Our being is not an individual being. It is not alone, separate, as we think. We are all interlinked. No man is an island. Everybody is interlinked. That is why we undergo terrible suffering when we lose someone or something. There is an energy loss within us. We feel empty as if we are in a void. Every 'missing' that we experience, no matter of whom or what, is what I call death.

Why are we so afraid of death? Our misunderstanding, our misconception about death makes it much more frightening than it really is. As of now, death is a totally devastating experience for us. The very word shakes us, frightens us. Nobody wants to even think about it.

If we make death a day-to-day affair, then we will never be in fear of it. People ask me surprised, 'What are you saying, Master! How is this possible?' I tell you: talk about death, crack jokes and bring it into the realm of the ordinary events of your life. Treat it like a daily chore, like going and buying your daily vegetables; make it a part and parcel of your system! Then it will lose its fearful hold over you. We will be able to laugh at ourselves; we will be able to let go.

When we laugh, we drop our seriousness. We will see that death will become our intimate friend. And

contrary to our belief, death will guide us and help us to live our lives completely, from moment to moment.

A small story:

There were three Chinese mystics. Nobody knows their names now and nobody ever knew their names. They were known only as the Three Laughing Saints because they never did anything else; they simply laughed.

These three people were really beautiful: laughing with their bellies shaking. And then it would become infectious and others would start laughing. The whole marketplace would laugh.

Till just a few moments earlier, it would have been an ugly place where people were thinking only of money. Suddenly, these three mad people would come by and change the quality of the whole marketplace.

Laughter is eternal, life is eternal, the celebration always continues. The village people would forget that they had come to purchase and sell. Nobody bothered about greed. For a few seconds, a new world would open.

The saints traveled all over China, from place to place, from village to village, just helping people to laugh. Sad people, angry people, greedy people, and jealous people: they all started laughing with them. And many felt the key: we can be transformed.

In one village, it so happened that one of the three saints died. The village people gathered and they said, 'Now there will be trouble. Now we have to see how they laugh. Their friend has died; they must weep.' But when they came, the two saints were dancing, laughing and celebrating the death of their friend.

The village people said, 'Wow, this is too much! When a man is dead, it is profane to laugh and dance.' The two saints said, 'During his whole life, we laughed with him. How can we give him his last send-off with anything else? We have to laugh, we have to enjoy, we have to celebrate. This is the only way.'

The body was to be burned, and the village people said, 'We will give him a bath as the ritual prescribes.'

But the two friends said, 'Oh, our friend has said: don't perform any ritual and don't change my clothes; don't give me a bath; just put me as I am on the burning pyre.' So we have to follow his instructions.'

And then suddenly there was a great happening. When the body was put on the fire, the old man played his last trick. He had hidden many fireworks under his clothes and suddenly there was a festival of fire crackers and displays! The whole village started laughing. The two mad friends were dancing and the whole village started dancing.

It was not a death; it was a new life. Laughter is eternal, life is eternal, the celebration continues. Actors change but the drama continues. Waves change but the ocean continues. We laugh, we change and somebody else laughs but the laughter continues. We celebrate, somebody else celebrates, but the celebration continues. Existence is continuous, it is a continuum. There is not a single moment's gap in it. No death is death because every death opens a new door: it is a beginning. There is no end to life; there is always a new beginning, a resurrection.

If we change our sadness to celebration, then we will also be capable of changing our death into resurrection. So learn the art while there is still time.

All that we understand of death is that it is anti-life. Again, because of our fear, we think too much about death. The actual experience of death is not as bad as our fear of death. We project our fear and see death as a giant figure. If real death is six feet tall, because of our fear, we see it as sixty feet tall! Because of our fear, we make the six feet death look like a sixty feet tall, frightening figure!

Be very clear: no one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is us, but someday, not too long from now, we will gradually become the old and be cleared away.

Our time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life! Don't be trapped by rigid rules, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Somehow, your heart already knows what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Let us go to sex. In the same way, because of our greed, we make sex bigger than what it really is. That is why there are such huge hoardings of actors and actresses all over. All our fantasies of sex are projected outside. We contaminate true understanding of sex by creating too many imagined expectations and too many unfulfillable dreams. We in effect create the recipe for personal disaster.

A small story:

Mullah Nasruddin was bitterly complaining to one of his friends about his salary. 'I earn only twenty thousand dollars per month. I don't know how I will manage with this amount!' His friend was surprised and asked him, 'Nasruddin, for your lifestyle, what you earn is more than enough! Why don't you feel satisfied? What was your salary when you started working?' Nasruddin said, 'When I started, my salary was two thousand dollars. Now it is twenty thousand dollars.'

The friend was astonished, and exclaimed, 'Then why aren't you satisfied with what you have?' Nasruddin replied, 'The moment I heard my salary was twenty thousand dollars, I began to feel I was worth one million dollars. I felt I deserved much more than what I was getting.'

Our mind projects us as someone bigger, someone greater than what we really are. The moment our existing reality changes, our imagination goes haywire! It seems like reality arrives by train while our imagination reaches by telegram. Our imagination as compared to our reality is moving on the super-fast lane. Before we can even start understanding our reality and living with it, our imagination has overtaken our life, our very existence.

In the same way, because of our ever-increasing imagination, we contaminate sex. We make our life miserable by being greedy for sex and being fearful of death. We allow both these emotions to tear us apart. This is the state that I call hell. The fabric of our whole life gets tinted with these two colors: sex

and death. Both these look like the two banks of a river that will never meet and merge. We think that sex is life; death is anti-life. They seem to contradict one another.

The man who is greedy for sex is the man who is anti-death. It is deep greed that makes us want to live continuously. We want to live so that we can accumulate. The truth is that the greedier we are, the less we will enjoy what we have. Greed will drive us on to get more and more. We will never stop; we will never relax to appreciate and enjoy what is there. We are afraid that if we pause we may lose out on something. Greed is all about the quantity of life, not the quality. We try to actualize all our sexual fantasies by getting into more and more relationships. We trap ourselves in a number game, not realizing that satisfaction depends on the depth and not the breadth of our relationships.

Sex is not confined to the possessing of another body. Nor is it about different postures. It is about the deep satisfaction that happens when two people give themselves completely: body, mind, and soul to one another. Sex is all about the sharing of our personal space in total trust with the other. It is a fearless, unconditional giving of our energy through our body and mind. It is all about being totally in the moment, in the present. It is about living with and enjoying the fullness of the reality around us.

The big problem is that we are never in the moment totally. We are afraid as to how long our joy will last and that leads us to greed for more. As a result, there is perpetual dissatisfaction.

As with death, so too with sex: it is never discussed in the open. No one wants to talk about it. Almost in all cultures, so many stories are woven around the incident of birth. Either babies are said to be brought by storks, or they are said to have been parceled by angels as gifts from God, or some kind doctor brought them home! Neither do parents discuss the topic of sex clearly with their children, nor do significant people like teachers and older relatives. In most cases, they themselves do not have the correct understanding.

If we read about sex, talk about it or discuss it, we are considered to be persons with loose morals. The natural curiosity of a child to know its own body and that of the other gender is brutally suppressed by society. The simple, beautiful truth about the process of life is never explained to young ones. People make sex shameful, secretive and yet highly desirable! This constant suppression by family and society is responsible for creating fantasies. Their whole lives revolve around working out these fantasies. They become greedy. They want the forbidden fruit. Their ignorance of the true nature of sex contaminates all their personal relationships. They see everything with tinted glasses because they don't know much about the true nature of sex; they make it bigger than what it really is!

Actually, a number of people have come and told me, 'Master, it is strange but during meditation I had an orgasmic experience! How can meditation do this?' I tell them, when we are in deep ecstasy, totally within ourselves, this can also happen. The orgasmic experience is not triggered by an external agent as we think; it is an alchemy that happens within us.

A dog once got a dry bone and started chewing on it. After some time, due to continuous scratching of the skin by the bone, its mouth started bleeding. The dog, thinking that the blood was coming from the bone, started relishing the bone. Little did it realize that the bone was as dry as before; it was actually relishing its own blood!

In ancient times, during what we refer to as the Vedic period, there was a great system of learning called the gurukul (where students stayed with the guru who was an enlightened master). Here, people from a very young age were given lessons on living life effectively. The whole system addressed life in four phases: the first phase called brahmacharya, was a period of study that helped enhance one's aptitude, the innate potential. There was available time and guidance to explore the potentiality and allow the understanding to shape the choice of one's profession. Please understand that the word brahmacharya does not mean celibacy. Brahmacharya means living with the Truth or Reality and refers to the study of life itself.

The second phase called grihastha, involved adult life. This was the phase in which marriage happened. Two people, man and woman, took the sacred vow to live their life joyfully and share their energy with one another, not just their body or mind, but their whole being. Living together completely and sharing this wholeness with each other is the true essence of the grihastha phase.

The third phase called vanaprastha involved removing oneself from all forms of social struggles. When one's children were mature and ready to take on the responsibilities of their lives, one was expected to retire from active life. One had the permission from society to drop out of the rat race and take the time to grow inside. One moved into a space that would help attain a deeper understanding of oneself. The old order smoothly made way for the new.

The fourth and last phase called sannyas was dedicated to prepare oneself to leave planet Earth. One had lived; now it was time to pack the bags and leave. The last phase was dedicated to understanding death. One was prepared for leaving the body. Then naturally, one's life became beautiful! Living was also beautiful, leaving was also beautiful!

But now, it is an entirely different scenario. There is so much of greed within us that we want to keep on achieving something or the other until the very end. We are always running in the rat race till we drop dead. I have seen so many people who attend office till the last breath. Why? What are they trying to prove? That is nothing but another form of greed. The society that they have created feeds this greed. Such a person is admired. Such an attitude is applauded.

Understand that greed will drive us away from enjoying life. We will be so busy accumulating that we will never find the time to enjoy what we accumulate. Too much greed makes us go against the natural flow of life. It will kill us even before we can start looking at what we have accumulated!

Greed never lets us enjoy life. We are never satisfied. We keep running till running becomes our very nature. How can a man who is running all the time ever enjoy what he is running for? To do that, he needs to take time off from his constant running.

In the same way, the deep fear of death stops us from enjoying life. It makes us dull, depressed and morose. Our whole life is joyless. All the time we immerse ourselves in futile activities. We convince ourselves that the ephemeral is the real. We believe that material acquisition and relationships will give us lasting security. As a result, the fear of losing leads to the greed of hoarding. We accumulate, but we never enjoy what we have accumulated. We are not taught to let go. We are strangers to the vibrancy of life.

We are afraid to see the simple truth that is all around us: the only certainty in life is death! Life and death, sex and death, fear and greed, all these are two sides of the same coin, two banks of the same river.

Right now, in the impure state, both are contradictory to one another. Once we construct the small bridge of meditation between these two banks, our whole life will be transformed!

If we add meditation to our lives, then both sex and death get purified. We free ourselves from the clutches of sex and death, from the grip of greed and fear. The whole concept of sex and death changes completely. We grow out of both. If we really meditate, in a sense, we die and we are reborn. Our fear of death disappears; our greed for life also disappears. They are both dissolved and purified by this bridge of meditation.

Just now, we saw what death and sex are before meditation. Now let us see what they become after meditation is added to our life. We will see that the whole concept of sex, life and death changes completely. They start complementing rather than contradicting each other.

Almost all traditions have tried to conquer death, to outlive death. For some reason, all of us want to experience immortality. Only one group of really intelligent and intuitive people understood after much struggle that we were approaching death in a completely wrong manner. They decided to take a hundred and eighty degree turn. They started working with death in a different way. They used meditation as a technique to take them where others had not dared to go before. Those few intelligent ones were the rishis (sages) of the Upanishad age. The report that they submitted on their research into the phenomenon of death is called the Katopanishad.

Of course, I am presenting the ultimate truth. It is the truth of the struggle of the whole of humanity. It is the history of almost the whole of human consciousness. We are all familiar with the history of humanity. I am presenting the history of human consciousness. These rishis did research on death and finally came to the conclusion that death cannot be understood or overcome by resistance. By resisting death, we cannot go beyond death. The only way to break free of the vicious cycle of birth and death was by becoming enlightened. Entering into the death experience, penetrating death, dropping fear was the key to understanding death.

The main character of the Katopanishad is a small boy called Nachiketa. He meets death and faces it eye to eye, without fear. The beauty of the Upanishad is that for the first and last time, death is depicted as a hero. Death is portrayed as the Lord and Master, as God and Guru. It is God who gives all the boons it is and the Guru who gives wisdom or the ultimate intelligence. When the boy faced death squarely, without any prejudice, Yama, the Lord of Death, became the giver of material boons and the ultimate wisdom rather than the taker of life.

We may wonder, how can death give one all these things? Try to comprehend this in a different dimension, in a different way. As long as we are afraid, we will never look death in the eye. Unless and until we do that, we will never know how blessed we are with abundance. It is only when we lose something that we realize the value of that thing. Just meditate on this. Suppose you are going to die in two days, what are the things that you would want to do? How much would there be to finish? It is only when we take stock of our life that we understand how much of goodness is showered on us. We take everything for granted because we believe that we are going to live forever.

Albert Einstein says, 'There are two ways to live one's life: one is as though nothing is a miracle and the other is as though everything is a miracle!'

Only when we understand death, will we understand the preciousness of life. Once we face death without fear, we will understand that death is not the end of life but the climax. When this understanding dawns on us, we will stop praying for everlasting life.

We pray only when the question of death arises. I have seen so many atheists crying out the names of all the Gods the moment the doctor declares that they are going to die! Immediately, they turn to God for help. There are so many politicians who have come to me secretly asking for healing or for vibhuti (holy ash). To the world at large, they are great atheists but in their homes they worship out of sheer fear.

Then there are philosophers and the vedantins (followers of Vedanta philosophy). Just because they read a lot, they begin to think that they have become enlightened. No amount of reading can give one the experience of the written words. If we digest the food that we eat, it is transformed into energy that can be utilized in our life. If we don't digest our food properly, what happens? Our system gets disturbed and we vomit the undigested food. In the same way, if we meditate on intellectual ideas, on great philosophy, Vedanta, it will become our experience. If we don't meditate, we misunderstand these great truths, catch hold of people, and start vomiting on them. We will start preaching to them!

Both, our greed and our fear can be transformed by meditation. No other technique can do that which meditation can; not even prayer. Praying is just another method of escapism. Never pray out of fear. I have seen many people who start chanting the Lord's name, saying some prayer or the other, when they are walking alone on a deserted road. We remember God only when we are alone or when we are frightened. We feel good because our mind gets diverted. We don't remember the fear. We do not dwell in the fear. When we pray, our mind gets diverted and we feel things are fine. Don't think that your favorite God has come to help you. Even if one chants, 'Coca -Cola, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola,' one's mind will be diverted! One will not experience fear. But that is not the way to face fear. That is not the way to overcome fear.

The only way to overcome fear is to face it! Only then will we understand that death has no value. It is only we who give so much of importance to death. Please understand that death has power over us only because of our belief, our faith in it. It is just a matter of belief.

When we believe that death is terrifying, it becomes terrifying. It is like a mirror that faithfully reflects whatever we project on it. When a donkey sees itself in the mirror, what will it see? It will see a donkey, nothing else. Can it see anything else? In the same way, if we are totally afraid of death, then we will see only fear reflected back to us.

If we take a little time and look into our fear of death, we will see that it has the power to transform our life in the most positive way. We will realize that it is on our side and that it does not play a contradictory role in our lives and it is actually complementary to our lives.

Death is deep relaxation. It is the ultimate letting go. It is the dropping of the old and starting of the new. When our being recognizes that it cannot achieve what it wants to through this body, it decides to move on. This moving on, this passing over is what is called death.

When our brand new house becomes old after the passage of time, we either try to repair it or if that is too inconvenient and frustrating, we decide to sell the house and move into a new one. When we do this, do we feel that we are missing something? No! In the same way, when we feel that we have not lived our lives completely, fully in the way we wanted to, we leave this body to take a new one. We want to restart. God gives us a choice to start again, He gives us a boon and He blesses us. Our choice to start again is what is called death!

When we die, all that happens is that we rejuvenate our body and our mind. We take a fresh set of memories, a new setting, different set of relatives, and a new life. In other words, we take a new birth hoping to fulfill all our incomplete desires. We come back to finish whatever we left unaccomplished in the last birth. This choice given to us by God to start all over again is death.

However, without understanding this simple truth, we waste our whole lives doing everything possible to resist death. Once we add meditation to our lives, we start understanding our fears. Facing fear demystifies death. It is as if all the fog, all the snow, all the ice has been removed and we are able to see the sparkling water of understanding flowing clearly and beautifully. We start looking death in the eye.

When we face death, we see that it is nothing but life; because every moment we die, the next moment we are born. Death and birth are just cycles. If we die, we will be born; if we are born, we will die. We should understand that it is just a cycle. When this happens, we lose all fears. We start really living our lives. We start enjoying every breath that we take on planet Earth.

A small story:

The great philosopher Socrates was about to die. He had been forced by his detractors to drink hemlock, which is a deadly poison.

All his disciples were around him, mourning his impending death.

Socrates was his usual calm, composed self. Seeing his composure one of the younger disciples asked, 'You have been poisoned! You are about to die, and yet you are so relaxed, you are your usual self. Aren't you afraid of dying?'

Socrates looked up, smiled and said, 'Why should I be afraid of dying? Only two things can happen: either I will continue to exist in some form, in some name, in which case what is there to fear? Or I will cease to exist in any form, by any name, in which case who is there to fear? So either way there is nothing to fear!'

Beautiful, isn't it? Just courage and understanding can set us free of our deepest fears. Socrates was a rare kind of philosopher: He lived by his words. He practiced what he preached!

Modern physiologists claim that once every eighty days, all our blood cells change. Not a single one of the old cells remain. The whole lot, consisting of millions and millions of blood cells are replaced. In a total span of seven years, our entire body is replaced! It is a proven medical fact. We are not the same person that we were seven years ago. But does that fact upset us? Do we feel that we have lost something? No! The person who was there seven years ago is not there anymore. We are totally new people.

Understand that we are going through a continuous process of life and death. Yet, we are not disturbed. We are not frightened by this change that is happening within us. We don't feel like we are losing

anything. Then why do we feel a sense of loss with death? That is because we have not faced it. We have not taken the time to study it, to understand it. That is why we feel so sick, so frightened of death.

When we face fear, the very concept of death disappears. Death becomes a God and Guru. Death is the master; master is death. Death teaches us beautiful things which life cannot teach us. Death is the greatest master. It empowers us; it sets us free from bondage. If this same understanding is applied to sex through meditation, then that also gets purified. It gets freed from our fantasies and dreams and flowers as ultimate love.

I always tell people: if one wants to spread anything all over the world one just has to put it up on a web site. It spreads immediately and reaches every corner of the globe. It becomes universal. Just add a 'dot com' and it becomes universal! Personal things become universal things. In the same way, add 'dot com' to your passion and it becomes 'com-passion'. When all our attention is covertly or overtly directed towards only one person, it is mere passion, lust. When we add the '.com' to lust it becomes universal, it becomes compassion. As long as it is directed towards one person, it is passion. When we give it to the whole world, it becomes compassion.

When we meditate, our passion becomes compassion, our lust becomes love. Our dreams drop, our imagination gets burnt and our fantasies are destroyed. Our life experiences a total transformation. We understand life and sex in a different dimension. We penetrate death in a different dimension. When we add meditation to our daily living, we bridge life and death.

How can these three aspects - sex, death and meditation - become a single experience; how can they unite? First, we saw how they exist currently in our lives. Second, we saw what they can become when meditation is added to our lives. Now we will see how all three can lead to the same experience.

In sex, death and meditation, in all three, our mind experiences a gap, our intellect stops working and our being floods energy into our systems. Just for a moment, our mind stops working. Meditation gives us a glimpse of this mindless state. Actually we can reach the mindless state, access our innermost energy in three ways: through the physical, mental and the spiritual.

The physical way is through sex. Through sex also, we reach the mind-less state. Just for a moment, we have a glimpse of the same joy, the same ecstasy. But it is not permanent. That is the problem. It is not permanent. It is mithyananda, not nithyananda. Mithyananda means ephemeral happiness which can disappear, which is not rooted in reality.

If we consciously penetrate death, we once again go through the outer-body experience. We will have a deep bodiless experience. When we enter into sex, death or meditation, we undergo the same boundariless experience; we reach the same exalted state.

Tantrics (people who practice tantra) use the body to reach the enlightened state through sex. Vedantins use the mind, enter through fear of death and reach enlightenment. Yogis work at the being level through meditation and reach enlightenment. In all three, logic is put aside. In sex also, we need to put our logic away. The man who is logical, who lives in his mind too much cannot really relate with the other. As I was mentioning earlier, living with a philosophy professor is the greatest possible hell on Earth!

Using the head too much does not allow us to relate with others. Whether it is sex, death or meditation, we need to drop our head; we have to become illogical. No matter how much we argue, death is not going to argue with us. Death is almost like a wife: she simply does, that's all! We may be great philosophers, convincing thousands and thousands of people in the world with our logic and arguments, but what happens inside the house? We can argue from morning till night, but in the end, we will see that the other does exactly what he or she want; they neither consult you nor give you any explanation.

Death also behaves in a similar manner. It never argues with us. We can plead, we can beg, we can cry for the postponement of our death. But no! Death will not wait to argue. Arguments or logic cannot be used with death. It is the same with meditation. The man who is logical can never meditate. He can never let go. In meditation also, we need to drop our logic.

Sex, death and meditation are similar types of experiences. In sex, we are born; in meditation, we are reborn. In death, we die; in meditation we die once and for all. In sex, we are born once. In death, we die once. In meditation, we do both. Both, death of the old and birth of the new happens in meditation. We become enlightened.

In sex, regular birth happens; in death, regular dying happens. In meditation, the last birth and the last death happen. We die as the Ego is the last death. Our taking birth as an enlightened person is the last birth. Our last death and last birth: nirvana is the last nightmare; Enlightenment is the last dream. So also with meditation, our last death happens and our last birth happens.

When we add meditation to our lives, we see that both life and death are bridged. If we are wise, we will add meditation to bridge both, to unite both. When we do this, both become one. As long as we don't have this bridge, both are separate cities. When we bridge them, they are no longer two separate cities, they become one.

When we bridge life and death with meditation, we experience a totally different way of living. We experience the ultimate birth and ultimate death. Please understand very clearly, meditation enriches our death and enriches our sex. It enriches our leaving and our living.

Meditation is the way to unite, to communicate and to commune between birth and death. It transforms our lives. If we bring meditation between birth and death, it makes our lives worthy. Otherwise, it is just one more cycle in the great cycle of our personal evolution.

Ramana Maharishi says beautifully, 'If we wake up from our dreams, we come out of our dreams. If we don't wake up, we just dream, fall asleep, dream again, fall asleep again and dream again. The same cycle continues.'

In the same way, when we become enlightened, we come out of this dream of life and death. Otherwise, the cycle of birth and death goes on continuously. Until we wake up, until we meditate, the cycle of life and death will go on without our conscious awareness.

Someone asked me, 'Master, why is it that on most tombstones in graveyards we see: Born on this date, died on this date? I told him that nothing worth mentioning happens in between, that's why!

In many of our lives, only our birth and death are worth mentioning. Nothing else worthwhile happens. If we add meditation, then something really worth mentioning happens in our lives between birth and death.

Something so worthwhile that it can transform our very living.

Add meditation as a bridge between birth and death. If we miss meditation, we miss the real dimension of our life. Meditation is not meant to be just a part of our lives. It is not something we do for half an hour and forget for the next twenty-three and half-hours. It is meant to transform our whole life. Please understand that meditation is not a luxury; it is a necessity! Do not find excuses to postpone meditation.

Meditation is like a bright torch; it is the light with which we can explore all the dimensions of our lives. When we do this, we start understanding each and every dimension in a new way. That is why I tell you to build this bridge, so that you will understand both banks of the river. When we build the bridge of meditation, life, death and meditation all meet and merge in the river of Existence, the river of Brahman, God, the Divine, Eternal Bliss. So I request you all to construct this bridge, to touch both the banks of your life with courage and understanding.

May this bridge of meditation not only help unite the two seemingly opposing banks, but also help you reach the experience that all the three lead to: enlightenment, eternal bliss, nithya-ananda.

Questions and Answers:

Q: Is Kundalini awakening the only way to enlightenment?

A: Actually when we become enlightened, the kundalini (energy centre located at the navel) awakens automatically. The kundalini getting awakened is not the only way; it is one way, but not the only way. There are so many other techniques. It is actually vice versa. When we get enlightened, the kundalini automatically gets awakened. But to reach the enlightened state, there are so many other paths. So we can reach through any technique. But once we reach that enlightened state, the kundalini automatically awakens.

Q: What is the root of all evil?

A: This question is the root of all evil! The questioning mind, the intellectual mind which continuously questions is the root of all evil!

Q: Why do we do prostrations and touch the feet of the master or God? Is it not a de-humanizing experience?

A: It is the only humanizing experience. If we don't touch the feet of the God or the master, we will be touching the feet of our own ego. If we don't follow God or our master, we will be following our own ego.

People come and ask me, 'Master, why should we chant God's name?' I tell them that there is no need to chant God's name. Why should we chant? If we don't chant Rama or Krishna, we will be chanting 'coca-cola, coca-cola', or our wife's name, that's all! If we chant the Divine name, we will not be chanting the other things. If we don't chant this, we will be chanting that; that's all. That is what one youngster asked me, 'Why should we chant Rama, Rama, Krishna, Krishna? I hate all this stuff, master!' I told him, it is alright. If we feel comfortable chanting something else, do that!

If we don't touch the feet of God, the feet of the masters, we will be touching our own ego's feet. There are only two options for us: either we listen to the master or we listen to the ego. Master is the man who has already achieved eternal bliss, nithya-ananda. So if we follow him, we will get that state. As for our ego, what it has achieved and towards what it is leading us, we already know! If we are quite happy, comfortable, content, blissful in the path in which our ego is leading us, then we can touch our ego's feet, nothing wrong. If we are happy, ecstatic, blissful with our ego, then we can follow our ego, touch the feet of our ego; there is nothing wrong. If we are a little uncomfortable, if we want to change, then the time has come to follow the master's path.

There are only two things: master and the mind. If we follow the master, we cannot follow the mind; if we follow the mind, we cannot follow the master. If we touch the feet of the master, we will not touch the feet of the mind; if we don't touch the feet of the master, we will be touching the feet of the mind.

That is why there is a beautiful word namaha in Sanskrit. When people touch the feet of the master, they say namaha. It means, 'Not mine, I am not the 'I', the 'I' and 'mine' are surrendered at your feet.' The 'I' and 'mine' are surrendered at the feet of the master or God. So touching the feet of the God or the master is the only humanizing experience. If we don't, we will be following our senses, we will be following our mind, which is the greatest dehumanizing experience. We drop from our divinity to become animals.

So touching the master's feet will make us human beings; imbibing his teachings will make us Divine. This is the only humanizing experience that can happen in our lives. Of course, I personally don't encourage touching the feet or doing the pada-puja (anointing the feet of the master). But now, I am explaining from the philosophical point of view.

Q: Is learning about our past lives a good way of helping resolve some of the issues in our present life? If it were, would you be able to uncover my past life and tell me what it was like?

A: Learning about our past lives is a really good way of resolving some of our issues. We do this in our initial level meditation program. This meditation technique, the cleansing of the chakra, has given experiences or a glimpse of past lives for many participants. It clears it without you knowing it. It clears it at a very deep level. But if I start teling you about your past lives, it will only add chaos to your present lives. Even with present life memories, you are unable to live peacefully! Imagine if I open up your past life memories! There is no need. What needs to surface and leave you will leave you through our meditation itself.

Q: People are afraid of enlightenment as much as they are afraid of death; am I correct?

A: You asked the right question. We are undergoing the last nightmare. Nirvana is the last nightmare. A devotee questioned Ramana Maharishi, 'How can seeing the master help us to wake up or become enlightened, Bhagavan?' Ramana Maharishi replied, 'The master is a simha-swapna (dream or nightmare of a lion) for us. He is a nightmare for us. If we experience a nightmare when we are asleep, we wake up with a start! If we see an elephant chasing us, or a snake biting us in our dream, what happens? We wake up from our dream. In the same way, the master is a simha-swapna; he just frightens us out of our unconscious way of living.'

We can wake up in two ways: either through a dream of deep desire or a dream of deep fear! If in our dream we see someone whom we have wanted to meet for a long time, the moment we go to grab him or her, we will wake up! Just at the point when our desire is about to be fulfilled, we wake up! It is the same

with fear also. If we have a nightmare, a dream that totally shakes us, frightens us, we wake up before we actually die in the dream!

Dreams related to sex wake us up; dreams related to fear wake us up. Both wake us up. In both the cases, we wake up to the conscious state. In the same way, the master also uses two techniques to wake us up from our long slumber. He creates in us the greed for bliss. He is continuously blissful, ecstatic. We feel envious of his state. We feel a deep, disturbing jealousy. Many people tell me, 'Master, we may or may not understand half the things you speak. All we know is that we feel very jealous of your blissful state. You are so busy meeting your devotees, listening to their problems, looking into the organizational work, traveling and yet you remain fresh and joyful all the time!'

Yes, the master creates a tremendous greed in you. He shows you that something more is possible; that you are capable of much more. The master is a tree and you are a seed. He shows you that you can become a tree. He proves your potentiality. He is the certificate or the authority of the state in which you can flower, in which you can blossom. He continuously creates the greed in us to reach that state. He awakens us so we may become enlightened. For some people who do not respond to greed, he creates a deep fear of logic: you are in hell, the seventh hell. The desire of seventh heaven and the fear of seventh hell are created just to wake us up, slap our face! Wake up! You are Buddha. That's all!

Q: The death penalty was introduced in the American constitution not long ago. Now the government executes people who murder someone. Is this the correct thing to do spiritually? Would it help the overall development of the society? Or would it inflict more negative emotions in an atmosphere of pain?

A: Of course, we are no one to comment or criticize the law of a place. But from the spiritual point of view, I can give you a small explanation. The concept of 'an eye for an eye' is: if someone takes your eye and you take his eye in return, he will take one more of your eyes and you will take one more of his eyes. Then, his followers will take one of your follower's eyes. If this 'eye for an eye' goes on continuously, where will it end? The whole world will become blind! It will end only in the blindness of the entire world. So an eye for an eye is not the preferred mode of retribution. We are no one to comment on the government's reason to do so. We cannot criticize the political structure or the constitution of a country. They have their own reasons. But from the spiritual stand point, death for death is not advocated. Transformation should happen at the individual level and it is perfectly possible for peace to prevail.

Q: Regarding the meditation that we did yesterday, I am not clear about what was said at the end. You said Aum, and then something; could you please say it clearly so I can know what the chant is?

A: When the meditation ended, I chanted the peace mantra: Aum shanti, shanti, shantihi. Shanti means peace. That is the vibration which creates peace in us, which creates silence in us. It is the bridge that can connect us with Existence.

While in a deep meditative state, you may be in another plane. You need to come down to this plane. Suddenly bringing you back may give you a shock or a jolt. It may shake you. You should be brought back in a very loving, beautiful way. It is like when babies are delivered, these modern nurses treat babies roughly. They give a stinging slap to the tender bodies of the babies! It gives them a terrible shock. Of course, we should make them cry, there is nothing wrong with that. We should make them cry and only then, will they start breathing. But it need not be done in such a rude manner.

They are not received with love or in a welcoming mood when they come to planet Earth. When we are

born on planet Earth, our mind is very fresh, pure, and clean. The first moment of a baby's life is very crucial to the manner in which it will respond to the world later in life. This moment will be imprinted forever in it's being. The emotion of that single moment will decide the way in which that individual will live his life. That is why, with a few exceptions, all of humanity is still reacting to the manner in which they were welcomed to planet Earth!

We live our lives protecting ourselves, defending ourselves from pain. We close ourselves to all possibilities. Now we are trying to work with a technique of painless delivery so that babies will be received with love. They will be welcomed in a gentle manner in a fragrant atmosphere with beautiful music.

When newborns are received with deep love, in a caring manner, they will carry this love and the feeling of giving themselves to others all through their lives. Please understand that the impression received at birth is carried till the very end of our lives.

Similarly, when we come out of meditation, we are like babies. We need to be brought down to the realities of this world in a gentle, loving manner. A small bridge is necessary to connect us to this plane so that we can carry the joy, the peace and the silence of our meditation with us twenty-four hours a day throughout our lives. That is why, 'Aum, shanti, shanti, shantihi' is chanted at the end of every meditation.

May we have the knowledge and the experience of eternal bliss, nithya ananda!