Acupuncture was developed in China near about seven thousand years ago by accident. A hunter was trying to kill a deer, but as his arrow was moving towards the deer, a man not knowing what was happening came in between and the arrow hit the man’s leg. The man had been suffering from migraine his whole life; the moment the arrow hit his leg, the migraine disappeared. This was very strange. Nobody had thought about it in that way.

Out of that accident the whole of acupuncture developed, and developed to a full science. So if you go to an acupuncturist and you say, “Something is wrong with my eyes, or something is wrong with my head, or something is wrong with my liver,” he may not bother about your liver, your head or your eyes. He will think of the whole organism; he will try to heal you not just the part that is sick.

Acupuncture has developed seven hundred points which were discovered in man’s body. Man’s body is a bio-electric phenomenon, alive. It has a certain electricity — hence we call it bin-electricity. This bio-electricity has seven hundred points in the body, and each point relates to some part of the body which may be far away from it. That’s what happened in that accident: the arrow hit a bio-electric point which related to the head, and the migraine disappeared.

Acupuncture is more holistic. The difference has to be understood. When you take man as a machine you take a partial view of him. If his hand is sick, you just treat the hand; you don’t bother about his whole body of which the hand is only a part. The mechanical outlook is partial. It succeeds, but its success is not real success because the same disease which has been repressed in the hand by medicine, surgery and other things, starts expressing itself somewhere else in a worse form. So medicine has developed tremendously; surgery has become a great science — but man is suffering from more diseases, sicknesses, than ever.

Acupuncture enters one layer more. It works on the vital body, the pranamaya kosh. If something goes wrong in the physical body, acupuncture does not touch the physical body at all. It tries to work on the vital body. It tries to work on the bioenergy, the bioplasma. It settles something there, and immediately the gross body starts functioning well. If something goes wrong in the vital body, allopathy functions on the body, the gross body. Of course, for allopathy, it is an uphill task. For acupuncture, it is a downhill task. It is easier because the vital body is a little higher than the physical body. If the vital body is set right, the physical body simply follows it because the blueprint exists in the vital body. The physical body is just an implementation of the vital.

If you want to learn acupuncture, it is good to know about it but remember that is not the most essential thing. Learn whatsoever information is possible, then forget all the information and start groping in the dark. Start listening to your own unconscious, start feeling an rapport with the patient. It is different….

When a patient comes to a Western medical man, the Western medical man starts reasoning, diagnosing, analyzing, finding out where the illness is, what the illness is, and what can cure it. He uses one part of his mind, the rational part. He attacks the disease, he starts conquering it: a fight starts between the disease and the doctor. The patient is just out of the game — the doctor does not bother about the patient. He starts fighting with the disease — the patient is completely neglected.

When you come to an acupuncturist the disease is not important, the patient is important, because it is the patient who has created the disease: the cause is in the patient, the disease is only a symptom. You can change the symptom and another symptom will come up. You can force this disease by drugs, you can stop its expression, but then the disease will assert itself somewhere else and with more danger, more force, with a vengeance. The next disease will be more difficult to tackle than the first. You drug it too, then the third disease will be even more difficult.

That’s how allopathy has created cancer. You go on forcing back the disease on one side, it asserts itself from another, then you force it on that side — the disease starts becoming very, very angry. And you don’t change the patient, the patient remains the same; so because the cause exists, the cause goes on creating the effect.

Acupuncture deals with the cause. Never deal with the effect, always go to the cause. And how can you go to the cause? Reason cannot go to the cause — the cause is too big for the reason — it can only tackle the effect. Only meditation can go to the cause. So acupuncture will feel the patient. He will forget his knowledge, he will just try to get in tune with the patient. He will feel en rapport; he will start feeling a bridge with the patient. He will start feeling the disease of the patient in his own body, in his own energy system. That is the only way for him to know intuitively where the cause is, because the cause is hidden. He will become the mirror and he will find the reflection in himself.  This is the whole process of it, and this is not being taught because it cannot be taught. It is really worth going into it.

Start feeling your own energy by and by, or the working of the energy in your own body, then acupuncture will not remain just a technique, it will become an instrument.   And it is an insight — you can learn the technique and nothing will come out of it — it is more a hunch than an art. That is one of the most difficult things about ancient techniques: they are not scientific, and if you approach them with a scientific outlook you may get some inkling but the major part will be missing.  And whatsoever you will be able to get hold of will not be much, and it will be frustrating.

One has to approach one’s own body from the interior most core. Those seven hundred points were not known objectively, they were known in deep meditation.  When one goes deep inside and looks from inside — a tremendous experience — one can see all the acupuncture points surrounding oneself, as if the night is full of stars.  And when you have seen those energy points, then only are you ready. Now you have an inner grasp, and just by touching the body of the other person you will be able to feel where the body energy is missing and where it is not; where it is moving, where it is not moving; where it is cold and where it is warm; where it is alive and where it has gone dead. There are points at which it responds, and there are points at which it has no response at all.

You will be able to know acupuncture only to the extent that you become capable of knowing yourself, and when both coincide there is a great light. In that light you can see everything — not only about yourself, but about the bodies of others. A new vision arises as if a third eye has opened.

Acupuncture is not a science but an art, and every art demands of you a deep ..surrender. It is not like any other technique that a technician can manipulate. It needs your whole heart in it. You have to forget yourself just as a painter forgets while painting, or a poet forgets while composing, a musician forgets while playing. It is that kind of a thing. A technician can practice acupuncture but he will never be exactly what is needed. He will never be that. He may help a few people, but it is a great art, a great skill. It has to be imbibed. The secret is surrender. If you can surrender yourself totally into it, if it becomes a devotion, a dedication — and it can become — go into it, go wholeheartedly, with joy.”

Start being on your own. And you will have to find your own knack. Acupuncture is a knack and an art, and there is no need to follow anybody like a rule. There are none. Rules do not exist, just insights. So start working on your own…. In the beginning you will feel a little unconfident, and you will be worried many times about whether you are doing the right thing or not. But this is how one has to begin. It is a kind of groping. Sooner or later you will find the door. Once you have started finding the door then less and less groping is needed. Then you know the door. Start working!

When you touch anybody’s body or you work with needles, you are working on God. One has to be very respectful, very hesitant. One has to work not out of knowledge but out of love. Knowledge is never adequate, it is not enough. So feel for the person. And always feel inadequate, because knowledge is limited and the other person is an entire world, almost infinite…. People touch you but they never touch you. They touch only the periphery, and you are there somewhere deep in the centre where nobody enters except love. Man is a mystery and is going to remain a mystery forever. It is not something accidental that man is a mystery. Mystery is his very being.