The conditions for healing meditation are primarily the same as those applicable to sleep: relax your body, relax your breathing, let go of thoughts. And so, for sleep as well as for meditation, the initial conditions are equally true. The difference is in the final condition. In the former you remain deep in sleep; in meditation you remain fully awake, that’s all….

Close the eyes… leave the body relaxed… leave the body relaxed. Leave the body completely relaxed, as if there is no life in the body. Let the whole energy move inside. The whole energy of the body is moving inwards… flowing inwards… we are getting shrunken inside, and the body will remain like a shell hanging outside. Whether it falls down, or remains tethered, it will remain external like clothing. Slip within… and leave the body relaxed.

Experience that the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing. Feel it and leave the body totally relaxed. The body is very obedient. When you feel it wholeheartedly it will become almost a corpse. Feel that the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is going on relaxing. Let go, let go of all grip… do not keep holding on to the body from inside, let go completely… take away all control over it, as if the body is not one’s own; now whatever will happen to it will happen. If it falls down it falls down, if one loses it one loses it. Move back away from it completely… remove your feelings from it.

The body is relaxing. The body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing… the body is relaxing. The body has relaxed. Drop, drop all grip over the body… if it falls, let it fall. The body has relaxed… as if it has completely become a corpse… as if the body is gone… the body is no more… we have become separate from it… we have moved away from it.

The breathing is relaxing. Feel that the breathing is going on relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is relaxing… the breathing is going on relaxing… the breathing is going on relaxing. Let go… let go of the breathing as well… move further within. The breathing has relaxed… the breathing has relaxed… the breathing has relaxed… the breathing has relaxed. You have moved even further behind the breathing… the breathing has relaxed.

The thoughts are also relaxing. The thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing. Move away from the thoughts also… let go of the thoughts also. The thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing… the thoughts are also relaxing. Let go of the thoughts also. Thoughts are relaxing… thoughts are relaxing… thoughts are relaxing… thoughts are relaxing.

The body has relaxed, the thoughts have relaxed, for ten minutes now just remain awake inside… for ten minutes now just remain awake inside. For ten minutes everything has died; inside we have remained awake like a flame. The body is lying far away… the breathing is heard in the far distance… the thoughts have quietened… inside our consciousness is awake watching it all. Do not fall asleep, remain awake inside.

Keep awake within… keep watching within… keep watching… become a watcher and a sudden depth will begin… a quietness will begin… a void will begin. Now for ten minutes just go on watching within quietly.

Mind has become silent… mind has become completely silent.

Drown deeper into the depths… as if falling into a deep well. Go on falling… go on falling. Stay awake inside and go on becoming an emptiness. Remain conscious inside, remain awake and keep watching. And everything has died… the body has remained far away, the breathing is left far behind, the thoughts have disappeared — only we have remained. Just keep watching wakefully… keep watching… the mind will go on becoming emptier.

Slowly take a few deep breaths and come back from the meditation. Open your eyes slowly and very gently.

When anger is suppressed for long time, it becomes depression. So depression is the negative phase of anger. Depression is the feminine part of anger.

You have to understand one thing that, when anger is suppressed and not allowed to express since childhood, it becomes depression. Once the pressure that is pressed is removed, it can become anger.

Anger is real, depression is just the shadow. So anger is the real problem and not depression. But we continue to condemn, fight, struggle with depression which is a shadow.

First try to understand the reason for depression. If you watch deep into depression, you can see anger. Enormous anger is there against your father, mother, self, world. Right from childhood you are smiling though there is great anger inside. This is what you have learnt and this is what has been taught. The happiness, smile which appears on the surface are all false. Deep inside there is a great anger and rage. As you are not able to express it, you are sitting over it – This is what is called depression.

So allow and let go anger. Depression disappears once anger comes out. Do this anger meditation for 20 minutes daily. You feel alive and beautiful once the real anger comes out.

After doing anger meditation for 3 days you start enjoying it and you start waiting for it. Now for the first time you start smiling in the real sense without pretension as great release has happened because of the meditation and depression starts to disappear.

Only breathe out / Breathe out only will also make anger disappear

It’s not possible to lead life without smiling, but pretended smile can be very hurting…. It cannot make you joyful, it just reminds about your unhappy state of mind.

ABOUT DEPRESSION:

It is a mood disorder, which causes continuous and repeated feeling of sadness, upset and loss of interest in life. It is also called as Clinical depression or Major depressive disorder.. Nowadays Depression is one of the more common mood disorders that is affecting more  around the world.

Depression is a real illness with real symptoms, which affects the body health both physically and mentally. Depression affects how you feel think  about yourself and makes it tough to function normally  and enjoy life’s day to day activity like ability to work, eat , sleep, mingling with family, friends, communication with others etc. but the good  and encouraging news is depression with wide range of treatments, doctors help, psychological counselling patient can be recovered fully from depression.

CAUSES OF DEPRESSION:

Continuing difficulties, Uncaring relationship, Low esteem and Work stress etc…,

Few people may be more at risk of depression because of their personality, [having a tendency to take lot of tension unnecessary worrying a lot]

Have low self-esteem,  Sensitive to personal criticism, Chronic illness or pain etc…,

DEPRESSION SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS:

Feelings of sadness or hopelessness in life

Angry, irritation or frustration, even for small matters

Loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities and hobbies and sex.

Sleep disturbances [insomnia or sleeping too much].

fatigue

Changes in appetite [reduced appetite and weight loss, and weight gain in some people]

Frequent thoughts of suicidal and suicidal attempts

Back pain cramps or headaches [Unexplained physical problems]

Relying on alcohol and sedatives

Avoiding social gatherings.

UNTREATED DEPRESSION:

If depression is left ignored and untreated will increases the chances of risk behaviours like getting addicted to drugs or alcohol. It also can ruin relationships, cause problems at work, and make it difficult to overcome serious illnesses

What prevents depression coming back is by learning and adapting the skills to deal effectively in day to day life and being positive.

Healing:- http://selfhealingonline.com/breathing/

ANGER CAN BE VERY EASILY RELEASED.

You can hit the wall and the pillow, you can just take a stone and throw it to the other bank of the river and that will do; you will suddenly feel a release. You can go into the jungle and shout and scream………

“ If you want to kill the shadow, bring light in and the shadow will disappear; bring in more awareness and the ego will disappear.

And the second thing: if you are imprisoned in sadness there is no way directly out of it. First the sadness has to be turned into anger. Sadness is negative anger: you are angry with the world, but negatively – that’s why you are angry with yourself. Just try to understand. There are two types of anger. The positive anger is against somebody else; the positive anger becomes sadistic – you start torturing the other. The negative anger turns upon yourself; it becomes masochistic – you start torturing yourself. But both are anger; what you are calling sadness is nothing but anger.

If you think about it as sadness your diagnosis is wrong, and then you will try to solve a problem which is not there. The problem is anger; you have turned it upon yourself, then it becomes self-pain.

You wanted to hurt everybody but you became afraid, so you started hurting yourself.

The destructive energy has moved upon yourself, it has become suicidal. So, the first thing: it is not sadness, it is anger – negative anger. So the first thing is to turn it into positive anger, because only the positive can be released – the negative cannot be released.

In positive anger you want to hurt people, you want to kill.]

But you are afraid of it.

That’s why you have turned it upon yourself. That is far better, and there is no fear – because if your anger turns outwards it can be thrown even on a pillow, but if it turns inwards you cannot throw it.

Then any object will do, that is not a problem; we can find objects and it can be done.

When you want to shout, you can shout. But if you want to shout inside, how can you? So the shout remains unexpressed and goes on revolving inside your being. You want to shout – but how to? You are alone.

So the first thing is to make it positive; and it is very easy to make it positive, it is not a problem. And once it is positive, to release it is so simple. It is just a child’s game to release the anger once it is positive. If it is negative, it is very difficult. Then it goes on hiding inside: you cannot bring it out, it goes into the innermost cave of your heart.

First: positive anger is better than negative. Second: positive anger can be very easily released.

You can hit the wall and the pillow, you can just take a stone and throw it to the other bank of the river and that will do; you will suddenly feel a release. You can go into the jungle and shout and scream .”

Some pain is there in your body. Do one thing: forget the whole body, just concentrate on the part of the body which is painful. And then a strange thing will be noted. When you concentrate on the part of the body which is painful, you see that part is shrinking. First you feel that the pain, the ache, is in your whole leg. When you concentrate, then you feel it is not in the whole leg. It was exaggerated – it is just at the knee.  Concentrate more, and you will feel it is not on the whole knee but just on a pinpoint.

Concentrate more on the pinpoint; forget the whole body. Just close your eyes and go on concentrating in order to find where the pain is. It will go on shrinking; the area will become smaller and smaller. Then a moment will come when it will be just a pinpoint. Go on staring at the pinpoint, and suddenly the pinpoint will disappear and you will be filled with bliss. Instead of pain you will be filled with bliss.

Why does this happen? Because you and your body are two, they are not one. The one who is concentrating is you. The concentration is being done on the body – that is the object. When you concentrate, the gap is broadened, the identification is broken. Just to have concentration you move inside, away from the body. To bring the spot of pain into perspective, you have to move away.

That moving away creates the gap. And when you are concentrating on the pain, you forget the identification, you forget that ”I am feeling pain.” Now you are the observer and the pain is somewhere else. You are observing the pain, not feeling the pain. This change from feeling to observation creates the gap. And when the gap is bigger, suddenly you forget the body completely; you are aware only of consciousness.

If there is pain, then first you will have to concentrate on the whole area; then by and by it will come to a pinpoint.  But there is no need to wait. You can use a pin. Use a pin on any part which is sensitive. On the body many spots are blind spots; they will not be useful. You may not have heard about blind spots on the body. Then give a pin to anyone, to your friend, and sit, and tell your friend to pierce your back with the pin at many points. At many points you will feel no pain. You will say, ”No, you have not pierced yet. I am not feeling any pain.” Those are blind spots. Just on your cheeks there are two blind spots which can be tested.

In religious festivals they will pierce their cheeks with an arrow. It looks like a miracle, but it is not. The cheeks have two blind spots. If you pierce through these blind spots, no blood will come out and there will be no pain. On your back there are thousands of dead spots, where you cannot feel any pain. Your body has two types of spots – sensitive, alive ones, and those that are dead. So find a sensitive spot where you can feel even a slight touch.

Then pierce the pin and enter the piercing. That is the thing; that is meditation. And gently enter the piercing. As the pin moves inside, into your skin, and you feel the pain, you also enter. Do not feel that the pain is entering you; do not feel the pain, do not be identified with it. Enter with the pin. Pierce with the pin.

Close your eyes; observe the pain. As the pain is piercing in, you also pierce you. And with the pin piercing you, your mind will become easily concentrated. Use that point of pain, of intense pain, and observe it. That is what is meant by gently enter the piercing.

If you can enter the pain observing, unidentified, aloof, standing far away, not feeling that the pain is piercing you, but observing that the pin is piercing the body and you are an observer, you will attain to the inner purity; the inner innocence will be revealed to you.  For the first time you will become aware that you are not the body. And once you know that you are not the body your life is changed completely, because your whole life is around the body. Once you know you are not the body, you cannot continue this life. The center is being missed.

When you are not the body, then you have to create a different life. It is a different life; the center is different now. Now you exist in the world as a soul, as an Atman, not as a body. If you exist as a body, then you have created a different world: of material gain, greed, gratification, lust, sex. You have created a world around you; this is the body-oriented world.

Once you know you are not the body, your whole world disappears. You cannot support it any more.  A different world arises which is around the soul – a world of compassion, of love, of beauty, of truth, of goodness, of innocence. The center is shifted, and it is not in the body now. It is in the consciousness.

Your experiences belong to the fourth centre, the heart. It is one of the most important centres, because it is exactly in the middle. Three centres are below it and three centres are above it. That’s why love is such a balancing experience. Your description is, “Whenever I feel open, flowing, connecting with you, other people, nature or myself, I mostly feel it in my heart as silence and expanding spaciousness, and sometimes as radiating light. Is this the same kind of experience you were talking about?”

I was talking about the third eye, which is above the heart. There are three centres above the heart. One is in your throat, which is the centre of creativity; one is between your two eyebrows, exactly in the middle, which is called the third eye. Just as you have two eyes to know the outside world… the third eye is only a metaphor, but the experience is knowing oneself, seeing oneself.

The last centre is sahasrar, the seventh; that is at the top of your head. As consciousness goes on moving upwards, first you know yourself, and in the second step you know the whole universe; you know the whole and yourself as part of it. In the old language, the seventh is ‘knowing God’, the sixth is ‘knowing yourself’, the fifth is ‘being creative’, and the fourth is ‘being loving, sharing and knowing others’. With the fourth, your journey becomes certain; it can be guaranteed that you will reach the seventh.  Before the fourth, there is a possibility you may go astray.

The first centre is the sex centre, which is for reproduction — so that life continues.  Just above it…the sex energy can be moved upwards, and it is a great experience; for the first time you find yourself self-sufficient. Sex always needs the other. The second centre is the centre of contentment, self-sufficiency: you are enough unto yourself. At the third centre you start exploring — who are you? who is this self-sufficient being? These centres are all significant. The moment you find who you are, the fourth centre opens and you find you are love.

Before the fourth the journey has started, but there is a possibility you may not be able to complete it. You can go astray. For example, finding yourself self-sufficient, contented, you can remain there; there is no need to do anything anymore. You may not even ask the question, “Who am I?” The sufficiency is so much that all questions disappear.  A master is needed in these moments, so that you don’t settle somewhere in the middle without reaching the goal. And there are beautiful spots to settle — feeling contented, what is the need to go on? But the master goes on nagging you and wants you to know who you are; you may be contented, but at least know who you are. The moment you know who you are, a new door opens, because you become aware of life, of love, of joy. You can stay there; it is so much, there is no need to move anymore. But the master goads you on, “Move to the fourth! Unless you find the purest energy of love, you will not know the splendour of existence.”

After the fourth, you cannot go astray. Once you have known the splendour of existence, creativity arises on its own. You have known beauty; you would like to create it also. You want to be a creator. A tremendous longing for creativity arises.

Whenever you feel love, you always feel creativity just as a shadow coming with it.  The man of creativity cannot simply go on looking outside. There is much beauty outside…but he becomes aware that just as there is an infinite sky outside, to balance it there must be the same infinity inside. If a master is available, it is good; if he is not available, these experiences will lead you onwards.

Once your third eye is opened, and you see yourself, the whole expanse of your consciousness, you have come very close to the temple of God; you are just standing on the steps. You can see the door and you cannot resist the temptation to go inside the temple and see what is there. There you find universal consciousness, there you find enlightenment, there you find ultimate liberation. There you find your eternity_

So these are the seven centres — just arbitrarily created divisions, so the seeker can move from one to another in a systematic way; otherwise, there is every possibility, if you are working by yourself, to get muddled. Particularly before the fourth centre there are dangers, and even after the fourth centre.

There have been many poets who have lived at the fifth centre of creativity and never gone ahead — many painters, many dancers, many singers who created great art, but never moved to the third eye. And there have been mystics who have remained with the third eye, knowing their own inner beauty; it is so fulfilling that they thought they had arrived. Somebody is needed to tell you that there is still something more ahead; otherwise, in your ignorance, what you will do is almost unpredictable.

Mike had decided to join the police force and went along for the entrance examination. The examining sergeant, realizing that the prospective recruit was an

Irishman, decided to ask him a simple question. “Who killed Jesus Christ?” he asked.

Mike looked worried and said nothing, so the sergeant told him not to worry and that he could have some time to think about it. Mike was on his way home when he met Paddy.

“Well,” said Paddy, “are you a policeman yet?”

“Not only that,” says Mike, “but I am on my first case.”

Man is such that he needs someone who has known the path and knows the pitfalls, knows the beautiful spots where one can remain stuck, and has compassion enough to go on pushing you — even against you — until you have reached to the final stage of  your potentiality.

The word ‘healing’ and the word ‘whole’ also come from the same root. To be healed simply means to be whole, not missing anything. Another connotation of the word — the word ‘holy’ also comes from the same root. Healing, whole, holy, are not different in their root.

Meditation heals, makes you whole, and to be whole is to be holy.  Holiness has nothing to do with belonging to any religion, belonging to any church. It  simply means that inside you, you are entire, complete; nothing is missing, you are fulfilled. You are what existence wanted you to be. You have realized your potential….Religion is a journey inwards, and meditation is the way. What meditation actually does is, it takes you, your consciousness, as deep as possible. Even your own body becomes something outside. Even your own mind becomes something outside.

Even your own heart — which is very close to the centre of your being — becomes outside. When your body, mind and heart, all three, are seen as outside, you have come to the very centre of your existence.

This coming to the centre is a tremendous explosion which transforms everything.  You will never be the same man again, because now you know the body is only the outer shell; the mind is a little bit inner but not really your inner core; the heart is a little bit more inner, but still not the innermost centre. You are dis-identified with all the three.

You start feeling, for the first time, crystallized…not that old wishy-washy person you had always been. For the first time you start feeling a tremendous energy, inexhaustible energy that you were not aware of. For the first time you know that death will happen only to the body, to the mind, to the heart, but not to you.

You are eternal. You have always been here, and you will be always here — in different forms, and ultimately in a state of formlessness. But you cannot be destroyed — you are indestructible. That takes all fear from you. And the disappearance of fear is the appearance of freedom. The disappearance of fear is the appearance of love.

Now you can share. You can give as much as you want, because you are now at the inexhaustible source of living waters…. Meditation makes you whole, makes you holy, and makes you an inexhaustible source for all those who are hungry, thirsty, seeking, searching, groping in the dark.

You become a light…. Meditation is the way to the mastery of your own being. No God is needed, no catechism is needed, no holy book is needed. Nobody is needed to become a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu — all that is sheer nonsense. All that is needed is to find your centre, and meditation is the simplest way to find it.  It will make you whole, healthy spiritually, and it will make you so rich that you can destroy all the spiritual poverty of the world. And that is the real poverty.

The poverty of physical bodies in food, in clothes, in shelter, can be easily helped by science and technology. But science and technology cannot help to give you blissfulness — that is beyond their scope. And you may have everything that the world can offer, but if you don’t have peace, serenity, silence, ecstasy, you will still remain poor.

That feeling of losing control over your eyelids immediately gives you the feeling that you are certainly falling into deep sleep. As long as you are aware, you go on repeating, “I am going deeper, deeper,” and a moment comes when you have gone deepest into your unconscious. And after ten minutes the alarm will go off, and you will come back from your unconscious to the conscious. You will be surprised how fresh, how young you are feeling within yourself— how clean, as if you have passed through a beautiful garden full of flowers, with a cool breeze.

You can also give yourself post-hypnotic suggestions. They have to be given at the last moment when your eyes are closing and you feel that now you will be going deeper. Before going deeper you start saying, “From tomorrow my health will be better.” Just choose one thing, not too many; don’t be greedy! And just a fifteen-day session or three-week session just on yourself, whatever you are saying… perhaps that your meditation will go deeper from tomorrow. You will find that your meditation is going deeper and you can create a very beautiful link.

When the meditation goes deeper, then you can suggest to yourself, “Tomorrow my hypnosis will go even deeper.” You can use both to bring you to the very depths of your unconsciousness.

Once you have touched the depths of your unconsciousness, then you can start a second suggestion: “Although I will be in the dark unconscious, a slight awareness will remain so that I can see what is happening.” And then go on repeating, “My awareness which was slight is becoming bigger and bigger and bigger….” And one day you will and the whole unconscious is lighted with your alertness — and that’s what meditation is.

Hypnosis can be used, should be used, without any fear. Either together, by people who trust each other and love each other, so there is no fear that they will exploit…you are with your very intimate friends; you know that they cannot harm you, you can open yourself, you can be vulnerable. Or just yourself…by yourself it will take a little longer, because you have to do two persons’ work yourself. That is a little disturbance.

But now, because mobiles are available you can dispose of the other person completely, and give the suggestion part to the mobile. And the mobile certainly cannot misuse it; it cannot tell you to kill your wife, unless you have put that on the tape.

Whatever you put in the mobile it will repeat! You can put the whole process in the mobile, all the suggestions of falling into sleep, heaviness of the lids, going deeper.  And then when you are deepest — a gap of four, five minutes, so you settle in your deepness — then from the mobile comes the voice saying that your meditation will become deeper from today, that you will not have to struggle with your thoughts. The moment you close your eyes, the thoughts will start dispersing themselves.

The mobile can be immensely helpful because there is no question of anybody to trust. You can trust your mobile without any fear. And you can lock the door so that nobody plays with your mobile — otherwise somebody may trick you!

Self-hypnosis has to be in the service of meditation; that is its greatest use. But it can serve health, it can serve long life, it can serve love, it can serve friendliness, it can serve courage.  All that you want, self-hypnosis can help you with. It can dispel your fears of the unknown, it can dispel your fear of death; it can make you ready for being alone, silent, peaceful. It can make you able to continue an undercurrent of meditation the whole twenty-four hours.

You can even suggest, “While I am asleep my small flame of awareness will continue all through the night without disturbing my sleep.”

Therapy should dissolve into hypnosis, and hypnosis should dissolve into meditation. Then one of the greatest forces for enlightenment has been created.

The people who worked hardest on the centres for thousands of years have not mentioned the hara, and this cannot be just a coincidence. The reason was that they never took death seriously. These seven centres are life centres, and each centre is of a higher life. The seventh is the highest centre of life, when you are almost a god.

The hara is very close to the sex centre. If you don’t rise towards higher centres, towards the seventh centre which is in your head, and if you remain for your whole life at the sex centre, then just by the side of the sex centre is the hara, and then, when then life will end, the hara will be the centre from where your life will move out of the body.

You were very energetic, but not aware of any higher centres; your whole energy was at the sex centre, and you were overflowing. Energy overflowing at the sex centre is dangerous, because it can start releasing from the hara. And if it starts releasing from the hara, then to take it upwards becomes more difficult. So I had told you to keep your energy in, and not to be so expressive: Hold it in! I simply wanted the hara centre, which was opening and which could have been very dangerous, to be completely closed.

You followed it, and you have become a totally different person. Now when I see you, I cannot believe the expressiveness that I had seen at first. Now you are more centred, and your energy is moving in the right direction of the higher centres. It is almost at the fourth centre, which is the centre of love and which is a very balancing centre. There are three centres below it, and three centres above it.

Once a person is at the centre of love, there is very rarely a possibility for him to fall back down, because he has tasted something of the heights. Now valleys will be very dark, ugly; he has seen sunlit peaks, not very high, but still high; now his whole desire will be….

And that is the trouble with all lovers: they want more love, because they don’t understand that the real desire is not for more love, but for something more than love. Their language ends with love; they don’t know any way that is higher than love, and love does not satisfy. On the contrary, the more you love the more thirsty you become.

At the fourth centre, of love, one feels a tremendous satisfaction only when energy starts moving to the fifth centre. The fifth centre is in your throat, and the sixth centre is your third eye. The seventh centre, the sahasrar, is on the top of your head. All these centres have different expressions and different experiences.  When love moves to the fifth centre then whatever talents you have, any creative dimension, is possible for you. This is the centre of creativity. It is not only for songs, not only for music; it is for all creativity.

Hindu mythology has a beautiful story. It is a myth, but the story is beautiful, and particularly for explaining to you the fifth centre. Indian mythology says that there is a constant struggle between evil forces and good forces. They both discovered that if they made a certain search in the ocean they could find nectar, and that whoever drank it would become immortal. So they all tried to find it. But as life balances everywhere, there too…. Before they found the nectar they found poison which was hiding the nectar underneath it. Nobody was ready to test it; even the very sight of it created sickness. One of them thought that the first hippie of the world perhaps might be willing — he was the god Shiva. So they asked Shiva, “You test it.” He said, “Okay.” He not only tested it, he drank it all, and it was pure poison. He kept it just in his neck, at the fifth centre. The fifth centre is the creative center. It became completely poisoned, and Shiva became the god of destruction. So Hindus have three gods: Brahma who creates the world, Vishnu who sustains the world, and Shiva who destroys the world. His destructiveness came from his creative centre being poisoned. And the poison was so great that it cannot be a small destruction; he can only destroy the whole of existence….  Shiva became the destroyer of the world because his fifth centre had accumulated the whole poison of existence in it. It is our creative centre, that’s why lovers have a certain tendency to creativity. When you fall in love, you suddenly feel like creating something — it is very close. If you are guided rightly, your love can become your great creative act. It can make you a poet, it can make you a painter, it can make you a dancer, it can make you reach to the stars in any dimension.

The sixth centre which we call the third eye is between the two eyes. This gives you a clarity, a vision of all your past lives, and of all the future possibilities. Once your energy has reached your third eye, then you are so close to enlightenment that something of enlightenment starts showing. It radiates from the man of the third eye, and he starts feeling a pull towards the seventh centre.

Because of these seven centres, India never bothered about the hara. The hara is not in the line; it is just by the side of the sex centre. The sex centre is the life centre, and hara is the death centre. Too much excitement, too much uncentredness, too much throwing your energy all over the place is dangerous, because it takes your energy towards the hara. And once the route is created, it becomes more difficult to move it upwards. The hara is parallel to the sex centre, so the energy can move very easily.

It was a great discovery by the Japanese: they found that there was no need to cut your head off, or shoot your brains out to kill yourself — they are all unnecessarily painful; just a small knife forced in exactly at the hara centre, and without any pain life disappears. Just make the centre open and life disappears, as if the flower opens and the fragrance disappears.

The hara should be kept closed. That’s why I had told you to be more centred, to keep your feelings inside, and to bring it to your hara…. If you can keep your hara consciously controlling your energies, it does not allow them to go out. You start feeling a tremendous gravity, a stability, a centredness, which is a basic necessity for the energy to move upwards….

Your hara centre has so much energy that, if it is rightly directed, enlightenment is not a faraway place.

So these two are my suggestions: keep yourself as much centred as possible. Don’t get moved by small things — somebody is angry, somebody insults you, and you think about it for hours. Your whole night is disturbed because somebody said something.  If the hara can hold more energy, then naturally that much more energy starts rising upwards. There is only a certain capacity in the hara, and every energy that moves upwards moves through the hara; but the hara should just be closed.

So one thing is that the hara should be closed. The second thing is that you should always work for higher centres. For example, if you feel angry too often you should meditate more on anger, so that anger disappears and its energy becomes compassion.  If you are a man who hates everything, then you should concentrate on hate; meditate on hate, and the same energy becomes love. Go on moving upwards, think always of higher ladders, so that you can reach to the highest point of your being,  and there should be no leakage from the hara centre.

India has been too concerned about sex for the same reason: sex can also take your energy outside. It takes…but at least sex is the centre of life. Even if it takes energy out, it will bring energy somewhere else, life will go on flowing. But the hara is a death centre. Energy should not be allowed through the hara. A person whose energy starts through the hara you can very easily detect. For example, there are people with whom you will feel suffocated, with whom you will feel as if they are sucking your energy. You will find that, after they are gone, you feel at ease and relaxed, although they were not doing anything wrong to you.

You will find just the opposite kind of people also, whose meeting you makes you joyful, healthier. If you were sad, your sadness disappears; if you were angry, your anger disappears. These are the people whose energy is moving to higher centres.  Their energy affects your energy. We are affecting each other continually. And the man who is conscious chooses friends and company which raises his energy higher.

One point is very clear. There are people who suck you — avoid them! It is better to be clear about it, say good-bye to them. There is no need to suffer, because they are dangerous; they can open your hara too. Their hara is open, that’s why they create such a sucking feeling in you.

Psychology has not taken note of it yet, but it is of great importance that psychologically sick people should not be put together. And that is what is being done all over the world. Psychologically sick people are put into psychiatric institutes together. They are already psychologically sick, and you are putting them in a company which will drag their energy even lower. Even the doctors who work with psychologically sick people have given enough indication of it. More psychoanalysts commit suicide than any other profession, more psychoanalysts go mad than any other profession. And every psychoanalyst once in a while needs to be treated by some other psychoanalyst. What happens to these poor people? Surrounded by psychologically sick people, they are continually sucked, and they don’t have any idea how to close their haras.

 METHODS /  TECHNIQUES TO CLOSE HARA

There are methods, techniques to close the hara, just as there are methods for meditation, to move the energy upwards. The best and simplest method is: try to remain as centred in your life as possible. People cannot even sit silently, they will be changing their position. They cannot lie down silently, the whole night they will be turning and tossing. This is just unrest, a deep restlessness in their souls. One should learn restfulness. And in these small things, the hara stays closed. Particularly psychologists should be trained. Also, psychologically sick people should not be put together.

In the East, particularly in Japan in Zen monasteries, where they have become aware of the hara centre, there are no psychologists as such. But in Zen monasteries there are small cottages, far away from the main campus where Zen people live, but in the same forest or in the same mountain area. And if somebody who is psychologically sick is brought to them, he is given a cabin there and he is told to relax, rest, enjoy, move around in the forest — but not to talk. Anyway there is nobody to talk to! Only once a day a man comes to give food; he is not allowed to talk to that man either, and even if he talks, the man will not answer. So his whole energy is completely controlled. He cannot even talk; he cannot meet anybody.  You will be surprised to know that what psychoanalysis cannot do in years, is done in three weeks. In three weeks time the person is as healthy as normal people are. And nothing has been done — no technique, nothing. He has just been left alone so he cannot talk. He has been left alone so he can rest and be himself. He is not expected to fulfill somebody else’s expectations.

You have done well. Just continue whatever you are doing, accumulating your energy in yourself. The accumulation of energy automatically makes it go higher. And as it reaches higher you will feel more peaceful, more loving, more joyful, more sharing, more compassionate, more creative. The day is not far away when you will feel full of light, and the feeling of coming back home.  Man has lost contact with the solar plexus because of the fear of sex, because of the repression of sex, because of life-negation.

The solar plexus is the centre of life and death both. That’s why Japanese call it hara; ‘hara’ means death. And the Indians call it manipura. ‘Manipura’ means the diamond, the most precious diamond, because life comes from there. In the solar plexus is your seed. It is the first thing that is created in the womb of the mother; then everything else grows around it.

In the solar plexus your father’s seed and your mother’s seed are both present. The life cell from the father and the life cell from the mother create your solar plexus. That is your first blueprint; from there everything grows and it remains the centre forever and ever. You can forget about it, you can become oblivious to it, you can repress, you can start hanging in the head, but it remains in the centre. You just become less and less alive. The farther away you go, the less and less alive you become and the farther you are from the solar plexus. You live more on the periphery; you lose centreing, you lose grounding. It is very alive. Start living more and more.

That is the primitive mind, the most primal mind. The primal therapists are not yet aware that the primal scream comes from the solar plexus. It is the first mind. Then the second mind arises — the heart, feeling. Then the third mind arises — the head, thinking.  Solar plexus is being, heart is feeling, head is thinking. Thinking is the farthest, feeling is just in the middle; that’s why when you feel you are more alive; just a little more alive than when you think. Thoughts are dead things: they are corpses; they don’t breathe.  Feelings breathe, feelings have a pulsation, but nothing to be compared with the first, primal mind. If you reach the solar plexus and be there and live from there, you will have a totally different kind of life — the real life.

The few moments you feel that you are real are the moments when you are at the solar plexus. That’s why sometimes people seek danger, they go mountain climbing, because when danger is very real you simply go into the solar plexus. That’s why whenever you are in a shock your solar plexus has the first pulsation. In a shock you cannot think, you cannot feel: you can only be.  If you are driving and suddenly you feel an accident is going to happen, your solar plexus is hit. That’s the reason why people like speed in driving, and the speedier your car becomes, the more alive you feel, thrilled. You are coming closer to the solar plexus. That’s why there is such attraction in war. People go to the cinema to see a murder story. It is creating a situation in which you can feel your solar plexus again. People read detective novels and when the story really comes to its peak they cannot think, they cannot feel: they are!

Try to understand it. All meditations lead to it. It is your elan vital, it is the source of your vitality. Go into it, and you can go easily, that’s why I am saying to go into it. Whenever you are sitting silently, be there. Forget the head, forget the heart, forget the body: just be a throb behind the navel. If you go deeper into it, it will become possible for you to understand the real concept of trinity — because your father is there, your mother is there. If you are also there, the trinity arises. That is the basic idea of the trinity — not God and the son and the holy ghost. If you are there, then the trinity, a triangle, the father and mother are already there. If you are also there then the Christ is born, the son is born. And when the son is born there is real unity.  Two cannot meet: the third is needed to bridge the two. So your father and mother are there, consummated but not consumed, in a kind of union but not yet a unity. The feminine and the masculine are there but still not bridged, and that is the whole conflict — that you are two, dual. You are bound to be two; something has been given by the father and something has been given by the mother. They are both there, flowing together like two currents but still there is a subtle separation.

If your presence reaches there, if you become more and more aware of it, your very awareness will become the catalytic agent: the two will disappear and there will be oneness.  That oneness is called universal consciousness.