16 February 1975 am in Buddha Hall

THE SONG CONTINUES:
IN MAHAMUDRA ALL ONE’S SINS ARE BURNED; IN MAHAMUDRA ONE IS RELEASED FROM THE PRISON OF THIS WORLD. THIS IS THE DHARMA’S SUPREME TORCH. THOSE WHO DISBELIEVE IT ARE FOOLS, WHO EVER WALLOW IN MISERY AND SORROW.
TO STRIVE FOR LIBERATION ONE SHOULD RELY ON A GURU. WHEN YOUR MIND RECEIVES HIS BLESSING EMANCIPATION IS AT HAND.
ALAS, ALL THINGS IN THIS WORLD ARE MEANINGLESS, THEY ARE BUT SORROW’S SEEDS.
SMALL TEACHINGS LEAD TO ACTS – ONE SHOULD ONLY FOLLOW TEACHINGS THAT ARE GREAT.

Tantra believes, not in gradual development of the soul, but in sudden enlightenment. Yoga believes
in gradual development: inch by inch, step by step, you progress towards the final.
Yoga is very arithmetical: for each sin that you have committed you have to balance it by a virtuous
act; your account has to be closed completely. Without completing the account with this world, you
cannot become enlightened. It is a mathematical conception, scientific, and the mind will say, ”Of
course, it has to be so. You committed sins – who is going to suffer for them? You committed sins,
you have to suffer for them. And only through suffering can you become liberated. Evil have been
your acts; you have to balance them, you have to pay for them, and you have to move in good
acts. When the balance is complete, then only liberation is possible; otherwise, you will have to be
thrown again and again to the earth, to be reborn, to move, to grow.” That is the whole philosophy of
transmigration, rebirth.
Tantra says just the opposite. Tantra is a very very poetic approach, not arithmetical. And tantra
believes in love, not in mathematics; it believes in sudden enlightenment. And it says that small
teachings teach you about action; great teachings don’t teach you about how to act, they teach you
what to be, how to be.
Actions are millions, and if you have to pay for all the actions, it seems almost impossible that you
are ever going to be liberated. Millions of lives you have lived; in each life, millions of acts you
have committed. If you are going to pay for all those acts, suffer, and you have to balance each
bad act with a good one, it will take again millions of lives for you. And meanwhile, in the complex
relationship of life, you will be committing many more actions. So where will this chain end? It seems
impossible. Liberation becomes almost impossible – it cannot happen. If this is the way, that inch by
inch one has to grow, then growth seems an impossible dream.
If you understand the attitude of yoga, you will feel very very hopeless. Tantra is a great hope. Tantra
is like an oasis in a world of deserts.
Tantra says this is not the point at all: acts are not the question. You committed them because you
were ignorant, they came out of your ignorance. In fact, tantra says you are not responsible for them.
If somebody is responsible, then the whole – you may call it God – God may be responsible, but you
cannot be responsible. Tantra says that even to take this responsibility is very egoistic. To say, ”I will
have to balance, I will have to do good acts, I will have to liberate myself inch by inch and step by
step,” this too is a very egoistic, ego-centered attitude.
Why do you think you are responsible? Even if responsibility has to be somewhere, then it has to
be with the divine himself, with the whole. You have not created yourself, you have not given birth to
yourself. You have been given birth, you have been created – then the creator must be responsible,
not you.
And you committed all your actions in ignorance, you were not aware of what you were doing, you
were completely drunk with ignorance. In darkness you were groping, in darkness you came in
conflict with others, in darkness you stumbled upon things and something happened. Tantra says
the only thing that is needed is light, awareness. Not millions of acts have to be answered; only one
thing has to be done and that is: don’t remain ignorant, become aware.
Once you become aware, all that belongs to the world of darkness disappears. It will look like a
dream, a nightmare. It will not look like a reality. And it has not been a reality, because when you are
deep down unconscious, only dreams can exist, not reality. You have been dreaming that you loved.
You cannot love. You are not there to love. You still don’t exist, you don’t have any center. How can
you love? You only believe that you love, and then your love life and the acts concerned with it...
it becomes a dream. When you will awaken out of this dreaming, you will simply say, ”How could
I have loved? Impossible! I was not there in the first place. I was nonexistential in fact.” Without
awareness, what does it mean to say, ”I am”? It means nothing.
You are fast asleep, so deeply asleep, as if you are not there. A person fast asleep, in a coma in the
house – is he really there? There is no distinction to be made. Whether he is there or not makes
no distinction – he is in a coma. If thieves come and rob the whole house, will you call that man
responsible who is lying down in a coma, unconscious? Will he be responsible? Will he be asked
and judged: ”Thieves came! What were you doing here?” How can you make a man responsible
who is in a coma, unconscious?
Tantra says in all your lives you have remained in a coma – you are not responsible. This is the first
liberation that tantra gives you. And on the base of it, many things immediately become possible.
Then you need not wait for millions of lives – this very moment the door can open. It is not a gradual
process, it is a sudden awakening – and it has to be so.
When you are fast asleep and somebody tries to wake you up, is it a gradual process or a sudden
thing? Even in ordinary sleep, is it a gradual process or a sudden thing? Even in ordinary sleep, is
it a gradual process? Is it like this, that first you become a little awake, then a little more, and then
a little more; ten percent, twenty percent, thirty percent, fifty percent; that way does it happen? No.
Either you are awake or you are asleep; there are no gradual steps in it. If you have heard the man
who is calling your name, you are awake, not ten percent awake. Eyes may be closed, but if you
have become aware that somebody is calling you, you are already awake.
It is not a gradual process, it is a sudden jump. At one hundred degrees, the water jumps and
becomes vapor. Is there any gradual transformation? Does the water first become ten percent,
twenty percent, thirty percent? No. Either it is water or it is vapor; there is no middle ground to be
divided.
When a person dies, is he dead by and by, in a gradual process? Can you say that he is half-alive
and half-dead? What will it mean? How can a person be half-alive? Either he is dead or he is not
dead. Half-alive means he is not dead.
When you love a person, do you love ten percent, twenty percent, thirty percent? Either you love or
you don’t love. Is there any possibility of dividing your love? There is no possibility.
Love, life, death, they all happen suddenly.
When a child is born, he is either born or not born. And the same is true about enlightenment,
because that is the ultimate birth, ultimate death, ultimate life, ultimate love – everything comes to
its ultimate peak in enlightenment. It is a sudden thing.
Tantra says: Don’t focus your attention on the acts, focus your attention on the person who has done
the acts. Yoga focuses on the acts. Tantra focuses on the person, on the consciousness, on you.
If you are ignorant, tantra says you are bound to commit sin. Even if you try to be virtuous, your
virtue will be a sort of sin – because how can an ignorant man, fast asleep, be virtuous? How
can virtue arise out of ignorance, unconsciousness? Impossible! Your virtue must be just a mask;
behind it will be the real face, the real face of sin.
You may talk about love, but you cannot love – you will hate. You can talk about compassion, but
compassion must be just a covering of your anger, greed, jealousy. Your love is poisonous. Deep
inside in your love is the worm of hate, eating it continuously. Your love is like a wound, it hurts.

It is not like a flower, it cannot be. And those who expect love from you are fools, they are asking
the impossible. Those who ask from you morality are fools, they are asking the impossible. Your
morality is bound to be a sort of immorality.
Look at your moral persons, your so-called saints. Watch and observe them and you will find their
faces are just the faces of hypocrisy, deception. They say something, they do something else. They
do something, and they not only hide it from you – they have become so clever in hiding, they hide
it from themselves.
In ignorance, sin is natural. In enlightenment, virtue is natural. A buddha cannot sin; you cannot do
otherwise – you can only sin. Sin and virtue are not your decisions, they are not your acts, they are
shadows of your being. If you awaken, then the shadow falls and the shadow is full of light. And
the shadow never harms anybody, it cannot harm; it has a flavor of the unknown, of the immortal. It
can only shower on you like a blessing; otherwise is not possible. Even if a buddha gets angry with
you, it is compassion – it cannot be otherwise. Your compassion is not true; Buddha’s anger cannot
be true. Your sin, your natural shadow, whatsoever you do – you can decorate it, you can make a
temple on top of it, you can hide it, you can beautify it, but that won’t help – deep inside you will find
it there, because it is not a question of what you do, it is a question of what you are.
Look at the emphasis. If you understand this change of emphasis, and this change of emphasis is
a great point, only then you will be able to understand tantra.
Tantra is a great teaching. It doesn’t teach about acts, it teaches only about your being. Who you
are is the point – fast asleep, snoring, or awake? Who are you – alert, conscious, or moving in a
hypnosis? Are you a sleepwalker? or are you awake, alert, whatsoever you do? Do you do it with
self-remembrance? No. It happens – you don’t know why, from where it comes, from what part of
the unconscious comes an urge which possesses you, and you have to act.
This act, whatsoever the society says about it – moral or immoral, sin or virtue – tantra doesn’t
bother about it. Tantra looks at you, at the very center of your being from where it comes. Out of the
poison of your ignorance, life cannot come, only death. Out of your darkness, only darkness is born.
And that seems to be absolutely natural. So what to do? Should we try to change the acts? Should
we try to become more moral, virtuous, respectable? Or should we try to change the being?
The being can be changed. There is no need to wait for it for infinite lives. If you have the intensity
of understanding, if you bring your total effort, energy, being, to understand it, in that very intensity,
a light suddenly burns in you. A flame comes up from your being like lightning, and your whole
past and your whole future is suddenly in your vision – you understand what has happened, you
understand what is happening, you understand what is going to happen. Suddenly everything has
become clear; as if it was dark and somebody brought a light, and suddenly everything is clear.
Tantra believes in burning your inner light. And tantra says that with that light, the past simply
becomes irrelevant. It never belonged to you. Of course, it happened, but happened as if in a dream
and you were fast asleep. It happened – you did many things, good and bad, but they all happened
in unconsciousness, you were not responsible. And suddenly everything of the past is burnt down,
a fresh and virgin being comes up – this is sudden enlightenment.

Yoga appeals to people because it looks very businesslike. You can understand Patanjali very easily
because it fits with your own mind, the logical mind, the mathematical thinking. Tilopa is difficult to
comprehend, but Tilopa is rare. Patanjali’s understanding is common – that’s why there is so much
influence of Patanjali all through history.
People like Tilopa have simply disappeared without leaving any trace on the human mind, because
they couldn’t find affinity with you. Patanjali may be very very great, but still he belongs to the same
dimension. You may be a very very small thinker, and Patanjali may be a great great thinker, but you
belong to the same dimension. If you make a little effort you can understand Patanjali; if you make
a little effort you can practice Patanjali. Only a little effort is needed, nothing more.
But to understand Tilopa you have to enter into a completely unknown dimension. To understand
Tilopa you have to move through a chaos. He will destroy all your conceptions, all your mathematics,
all your logic, all your philosophy. He will simply destroy you completely. He will not be satisfied
unless you are completely destroyed and a new being arises.
With Patanjali you will be modified, you will become better and better and better – and the process
is infinite, you can go on for many lives becoming better and better and better. With Tilopa, in a
second, you can reach to the ultimate. ”Better” is not the question because he doesn’t think in
degrees.
It is just like you are standing on top of a hill: you can take the path of the steps and one by one you
go downwards to the valley, or from the valley you go to the hill, but by steps. With Tilopa you simply
jump into the abyss, no steps are there; or you simply spread your wings and you start flying. With
Patanjali you move in a bullock-cart, very slowly, safe, secure, no fear of any accident, the bullockcart
always in control. You can step down any moment, you can stop at any moment; nothing beyond
you, you remain the master. And the dimension is horizontal: a bullock-cart moves from A to B, from
B to C, from C to D, but the dimension is the same, the same plane. With Tilopa, the dimension
changes: it becomes vertical; it is not from A to B, from B to C; no, it is just like an aircraft, not like
a bullock-cart, not moving forward but moving upward. With Tilopa you can transcend time. With
Patanjali you move in time. With Tilopa eternity is the dimension.
You may not be aware, but within these few ten, twelve years, a miracle has happened, and that
is, new spaceships have destroyed the old time concept completely – because a new spaceship
can move around the earth, within seconds it can make one circle. You may not be aware of the
theoretical problem. It means a spaceship takes off from Poona, it is Sunday; then it goes around
the earth – somewhere it must be Monday, somewhere it may still be Saturday; so the spaceship
moves from Sunday, goes back into Saturday, jumps forward into Monday, comes back to Poona
on Sunday. The whole time concept is lost. It looks absurd! You start on the sixteenth, you move
into the seventeenth, and you come back on the same date, the sixteenth. And this can be done in
twenty-four hours many times now. What does it mean? It means you can go backwards in time,
from Sunday to Saturday, from the sixteenth to the fifteenth. You can go forward into the seventeenth,
into Monday, and you can come back on the same date.
With speed and a different dimension, vertical, time becomes irrelevant. Time is relevant with a
bullock-cart; it is a bullock-cart world. Tilopa is a vertical mind, a vertical consciousness. That is the
difference between tantra and yoga: yoga is horizontal, tantra is verti cal; yoga takes millions of lives
to reach; tantra says: within a second. Tantra says time is irrelevant, you don’t bother about time.
Tantra has a technique, a method, which tantra says is a no-method, a no-technique, through which
you can suddenly surrender everything and take a jump into the abyss.
Yoga is effort, tantra is effortlessness. With effort, with your tiny energy, and your tiny ego, you fight
with the whole. It will take millions of lives. Then too it doesn’t seem possible that you will ever
become enlightened. Fighting with the whole is stupid; you are just a part. It is as if a wave is
fighting with the ocean, a leaf is fighting with the tree, or your own hand fighting with your body. With
whom are you fighting?
Yoga is effort, intense effort. And yoga is a way to fight the current, to move against the current.
So whatsoever is natural, yoga has to drop it; and whatsoever is unnatural, yoga has to strive for
it. Yoga is the unnatural way: fight with the river and move against the current! Of course, there is
challenge and the challenge may be enjoyed. But who enjoys the challenge? Your ego.
It is very difficult to find a yogi who is not an egoist; very difficult, rare. If you can find a yogi who is
not an egoist, it is a miracle. It is difficult because the whole effort creates the ego, the fight. You
may find humble yogis, but if you watch a little deeper, in their humbleness you will find the most
subtle ego hidden, the most subtle ego. They will say, ”We are just dirt on the ground.” But look in
their eyes – they are bragging about their humility. They are saying, ”There is nobody more humble
than us. We are the humblest people.” But this is what ego means.
If you move against nature you will be strengthened in your ego – that is the challenge, that’s why
people like challenges. A life without challenges becomes dull because the ego feels hungry. Ego
needs food, challenge gives food – so people seek challenges. If there are no challenges, they
create them; they create hurdles so that they can fight with the hurdles.
Tantra is the natural way; the loose and the natural is the goal. You need not fight with the current;
simply move with it, float with it. The river is going to the sea so why fight? Move with the river,
become one with the river, surrender. ”Surrender” is the keyword for tantra; ”will” is the keyword for
yoga. Yoga is the path of will; tantra is the path of surrender.
That’s why tantra is the path of love – love is surrender. This is the first thing to understand, then
Tilopa’s words will become very very crystal-clear. The different dimension of tantra has to be
understood – the vertical dimension, the dimension of surrender, of not fighting, of being loose and
natural, relaxed – what Chuang Tzu says, ”Easy is right.” With yoga, difficult is right; with tantra,
easy is right.
Relax and be at ease, there is no hurry. The whole itself is taking you on its own accord. You need
not make an individual striving, you are not asked to reach before your time, you will reach when the
time is ripe – you simply wait. The whole is moving – why are you in a hurry? Why do you want to
reach before others?
There is a beautiful story about Buddha: He reached the gate of heaven. Of course, the people
there were waiting. They opened the door, they welcomed him, but he turned his back towards the
door, looked at the samsara, the world – millions of souls on the same path, struggling, in misery, in
anguish, striving to reach this gate of heaven and bliss. The doorkeeper said, ”You come in please!

We have been waiting for you.” And Buddha said, ”How can I come when others have not reached?
It doesn’t seem to be the right time. How can I enter when the whole has not entered into it? I will
have to wait. It is just like my hand has reached into the door, and my feet have not reached yet. I
will have to wait. Just the hand cannot enter alone.”
This is one of the most profound insights of tantra. Tantra says nobody can become enlightened,
in fact, alone. We are parts of each other, we are members of each other; we are a whole. One
person may become the peak, may become a very great wave – but it remains connected with the
small waves all around. It is not alone, it remains one with the ocean and all the waves there. How
can a wave become enlightened alone?
It is said, in this beautiful story, that Buddha is still waiting. He has to wait – nobody is an island,
we make a continent, we are together. I may have stepped a little further than you, but I cannot be
separate. And now I know it deeply, now it is not a story for me – I am waiting for you. Now it is
not just a parable, now I know that there is no individual enlightenment. Individuals can step a little
ahead, that’s all, but they remain joined together with the whole.
And if an enlightened person is not aware that he is part of others, one with the others, then who will
know this? We move as one being, and tantra says, ”So don’t be in a hurry, and don’t try, and don’t
push others, and don’t try to be first in the queue – be loose and natural. Everything is going towards
enlightenment. It is going to happen; don’t create an anguish about it.” If you can understand this,
already you are near it; one relaxes. Otherwise, religious people become very very tense; even
ordinary worldly people are not so tense as religious people become.
Ordinary worldly people are for worldly goals; of course, tense, but not so much as religious people
because they are tense for the other world, and their world is very far away, invisible, and they are
always in doubt whether it is there or not. And then a new misery arises: maybe they are losing this
world and the other doesn’t exist. They are always in anguish, mentally very much disturbed. Don’t
become that type of religious man.
To me a religious man is loose and natural. He is not worried about this world or the other world. He
is not worried about it at all, he simply lives and enjoys. This moment is the only moment for him, the
next moment will take care of itself. When the next moment comes, he will receive it also enjoying,
blissful. A religious man is not goal-oriented. To be goal-oriented is to be worldly. Your goal may be
God – it makes no difference.
Tantra is really beautiful. Tantra is the highest understanding, and the greatest principle. If you
cannot understand tantra, then yoga is for you. If you can understand tantra, then don’t bother
about small teachings. When the great vehicle is there, why bother about small boats?
In Buddhism, there are two sects. The names of the sects are very very significant. One sect is
known as Hinayana, the small vehicle; it is the path of yoga, a small boat: you alone can sit in it,
you cannot have anybody else in it, it is so small. The yogi moves alone. Hinayana means the very
small boat. And then there is another sect of Buddhists that is called Mahayana, the great boat, the
great vehicle. Millions can enter into it, the whole world can be absorbed into it.
Mahayana is the path of tantra and Hinayana is the path of yoga. Tilopa is a Mahayanist, a man who
believes in the great vehicle, the great principle.

Small boats are for egoistic people who cannot tolerate anybody else in the boat, who can only be
alone, who are great condemners, who look at the other always with condemnation. ”You – and
trying to reach there? You cannot reach, it is very difficult, only rare persons reach.” They will not
allow you to enter in the boat. Mahayana has a deep love for all. Everybody can enter. In fact, no
conditions exist.
People come to me and they say, ”You give sannyas to everybody and anybody?” Sannyas has not
been given that way ever. It is for the first time in the whole history of the world that I give sannyas
without any conditions. Sannyas has been always for very egoistic people: the otherworldly, the
condemners, the poisoners, who say everything is wrong, everybody is wrong, this whole life is a
sin; who have a look always in their eyes of holier-than-you, you are always condemned. Hell is
for you. They are great sannyasins; they have renounced the world, the world of sin and dirt and
poison, and you are still in it. The great egoists have been the sannyasins.
For the first time I have allowed everybody, I have opened the door. In fact I have thrown the door
completely. Now it cannot be closed, now anybody and everybody is welcome. Why? – because
my attitude is that of tantra, it is not of yoga. I talk on Patanjali also for those who are not able
to comprehend tantra; otherwise, my attitude is that of tantra – everybody is welcome. When God
welcomes you, who am I...? When the whole world supports you and the existence tolerates you,
not only tolerates, gives you energy and life...? Even if you are committing sin, existence never says,
”No, no more energy for you. Now you cannot get any more gas. Stop! You are doing too much
nonsense.” No. The energy goes on being given. There is never any gas-crisis; the existence goes
on supporting you.
It happened: A Mohammedan mystic, Junnaid, once asked God about one of his neighbors, ”This
man is so evil and he is creating so much mischief for the whole village, and people come to me and
they say, ’You ask your God, pray to God, if he can get rid of this man.’” And Junnaid heard in his
prayer the voice: ”When I am accepting him, who are you to reject him?” And Junnaid has written
in his autobiography, ”Never again did I ask him such a thing, because it was really foolish of me.
If he has given birth to this man, if he is still helping him to be alive, not only alive but flourishing,
blooming, then who am I?”
The existence gives you life unconditionally. I give you sannyas unconditionally. If the existence
hopes about you so infinitely that you cannot destroy its hope, who am I...?
Tantra is for all. It is not for the chosen few. It became a path for the chosen few because everybody
won’t understand it, but it is not for the chosen few – it is for all; it is for everybody who is ready to
take the jump.
Now try to understand:
IN MAHAMUDRA ALL ONE’S SINS ARE BURNED.
THEY ARE NOT TO BE BALANCED BY GOOD ACTS.
IN MAHAMUDRA ALL ONE’S SINS ARE BURNED.

What is this Mahamudra again and again? What happens? Mahamudra is a state of your being
when you are not separate from the total. Mahamudra is like a deep sexual orgasm with the whole.
When two lovers are in deep sexual orgasm, they melt into each other; then the woman is no more
the woman, the man is no more the man. They become just like the circle of yin and yang, reach
ing into each other, meeting into each other, melting, their own identities forgotten. That’s why love
is so beautiful. This state is called mudra, this state of deep orgasmic intercourse is called mudra.
And the final state of orgasm with the whole is called Mahamudra, the great orgasm.
What happens in orgasm, in sexual orgasm? You have to understand it because only that will
give you the key for the final orgasm. What happens? When two lovers are there... and always
remember: two lovers, not wife and husband, because with a wife and husband it almost never
happens because wives and husbands become more and more fixed roles, they are not melting and
flowing. ”Husband” has become a role, ”wife” has become a role. They act. The wife has to act as a
wife whether she likes it or not; the husband has to act as a husband. It has become a legal thing.
Once I asked Mulla Nasruddin, ”How many years have you been married, Nasruddin?”
He said, ”Twenty odd years.”
So I asked, ”Why do you call them ’odd’?”
He said, ”When you will see my wife you will understand.”
Wives and husbands are social phenomena... an institution, it is not a relationship. It is an institution;
it is a forced phenomenon – not for love, but other reasons: economic security, safety, children,
society, culture, religion, everything else except love.
Orgasm almost never happens between a wife and a husband – unless they are lovers also. That
is possible: you can be a wife or a husband and a lover; you can love your wife. Then it is totally
different, but then it is not a marriage at all, it is no more an institution.
In the East, because marriage has existed for thousands of years, people have completely forgotten
what orgasm is. I have not come across a single Indian woman who knows what orgasm is.
Some Western women, just within a few years, twenty-five years, have become aware that orgasm
is something worth achieving; otherwise, women have completely forgotten that they have any
possibility of orgasm within their bodies.
This is one of the most unfortunate things that could have happened to humanity. And when the
woman cannot have an orgasm, the man cannot have it really, because an orgasm is a meeting of
the two. Only two, when they melt into each other, can have it. It is not that one can have and another
may not have – it is not possible. Release is possible, ejaculation is possible; relief is possible, but
not orgasm. What is an orgasm?
Orgasm is a state where your body no more is felt as matter; it vibrates like energy, electricity. It
vibrates so deeply, from the very foundation, that you completely forget that it is a material thing. It
becomes an electric phenomenon – and it is an electric phenomenon.

Now physicists say that there is no matter, that all matter is only appearance; deep down, that
which exists is electricity, not matter. In orgasm, you come to this deepest layer of your body where
matter no more exists, just energy waves; you become a dancing energy, vibrating. No more any
boundaries to you – pulsating, but no more substantial. And your beloved also pulsates.
And by and by, if they love each other and they surrender to each other, they surrender to this
moment of pulsation, of vibration, of being energy, and they are not scared.... Because it is deathlike
when the body loses boundaries, when the body becomes like a vaporous thing, when the body
evaporates substantially and only energy is left, a very subtle rhythm, but you find yourself as if you
are not. Only in deep love can one move into it. Love is like death: you die as far as your material
image is concerned, you die as far as you think you are a body; you die as a body and you evolve
as energy, vital energy.
And when the wife and the husband, or the lovers, or the partners, start vibrating in a rhythm, their
beats of their heart and body become together, it becomes a harmony – then orgasm happens, then
they are no more two. That is the symbol of yin and yang: yin moving into yang, yang moving into
yin; man moving into the woman, the woman moving into the man. Now they are a circle and they
vibrate together, they pulsate together. Their hearts are no more separate, their beats are no more
separate; they have become a melody, a harmony. It is the greatest music possible; all other musics
are just faint things compared to it, shadow things compared to it.
This vibration of two as one is orgasm. When the same thing happens, not with another person, but
with the whole existence, then it is Mahamudra, then it is the great orgasm. It happens. I would like
to tell you how you can try it, so that the Mahamudra becomes possible, the great orgasm.
In Indonesia, there is a very rare man, Bapak Subuh. He has come unknowingly to a method known
as latihan. He stumbled upon it, but latihan is one of the oldest tantra methods. It is not a new
phenomenon; latihan is the first step towards Mahamudra. It is allowing the body to vibrate, allowing
the body to become energy, nonsubstantial, nonmaterial; allowing the body to melt and dissolve the
boundaries.
Bapak Subuh is a Mohammedan but his movement is known as ”Subud.” That word is Buddhist.
”Subud” comes from three words: ”su,” ”bu,” ”dha” – ”su” means sushila, ”bu” means Buddha, ”dha”
means dharma; Subud means sushila-Buddha-dharma. The meaning is: the law of great virtue
derived from Buddha, Buddha’s law of great virtue. This is what Tilopa calls the great teaching.
Latihan is simple. It is the first step. One has to stand relaxed, loose and natural. It is good if
you stand alone and nobody is there to disturb you. Close your room, stand alone. If you can
find someone who has already stepped into latihan, his presence can be helpful, his very presence
works like a catalytic agent, he becomes the opener. So somebody who is advanced a little already
can open you very easily; otherwise, you can open yourself also. A little more time will be needed,
that’s all. Otherwise an opener is good.
If an opener is standing just by your side, he starts his latihan: you simply stand and his energy
starts pulsating with you, his energy starts moving around you, like a fragrance he surrounds you
– suddenly you feel the music. Just as when there is a good singer, or somebody is playing on an
instrument, you start beating your feet, or you start tapping the chair, or you start pulsating with it
– just like that, a deep energy inside him moves and the whole room and the quality of the room is
changed immediately.
You are not to do anything; you are simply to be there, loose and natural, just waiting for something
to happen. And if your body starts moving, you have to allow it, you have just to cooperate and allow.
The cooperation should not become too direct, it should not become a pushing; it should remain just
an allowing. Your body starts moving suddenly, as if you are possessed, as if a great energy from
the above has descended on you, as if a cloud has come and has surrounded you – and now you
are possessed by that cloud, and the cloud is penetrating within your body, and your body starts
taking movements. Your hands are raised, you make subtle movements, you start a small dance,
soft gestures; your body is taken up.
If you know anything about automatic writing it will be easy to follow what happens in latihan. In
automatic writing you take a pencil in your hand, you close your eyes, you wait. Suddenly you feel a
jerk in the hand: your hand is possessed, as if something has entered. You are not to do anything,
because if you do then it will not be from the beyond; it will be your doing. You have simply to
allow. Loose and natural – Tilopa’s words are wonderful; they cannot be improved upon. Loose
and natural, you wait with the pencil, with closed eyes; when the jerk comes and the hand starts
moving, you have to allow it, that’s all. You have not to resist it; because you can resist. The energy
is very subtle, and, in the beginning, not very powerful. If you just stop it, it can be stopped. And the
energy is not aggressive; if you don’t allow, it will not come. If you doubt, it will not happen, because
with doubt, your hand will be resisting. With doubt, you will not allow, you will fight. So that’s why
trust is so meaningful, shraddha. You simply trust and leave your hand; by and by the hand starts
moving, now the hand starts making wriggles on the paper – allow it. Then somebody simply asks
a question, or you yourself ask a question; let the question be there, loose in the mind, not very
persistent, not forcing; just raise the question and wait. And suddenly the answer is written.
If ten persons try, at least three persons will be absolutely capable of automatic writing. Thirty
percent of people are not aware that they can become so receptive. And this can become a
great force in your life. Explanations differ... what happens – that is not important. The deepest
explanation that I find true is, your own highest center possesses your lowest center; your own
highest peak of consciousness catches hold of your lowest unconscious mind. You ask and your
own inner being answers. Nobody else is there, but your inner being, which you don’t know, is very
superior to you.
Your own innermost being is the possibility of your ultimate flowering. It is as if the flower takes
possession of the seed and answers. The seed doesn’t know, but the flower... as if your possibility
takes possession of your actuality and answers; as if your ultimate potentiality takes possession of
whatsoever you are, and answers. Or the future takes possession of the past, the unknown takes
possession of the known, the formless takes possession of the form – all metaphors, but I feel
you will understand the significance – as if your old age takes possession of your childhood, and
answers.
The same happens in latihan with the whole body. In automatic writing you only leave your hand
loose and natural. In latihan you leave your whole body loose and you wait, and you cooperate, and
suddenly you feel an urge. The hand is raising by itself, as if somebody is pulling it by some invisible
strings – allow it. And the leg goes moving; you take a turn, you start a small dance; very chaotic,
with no rhythm, with no manipulation, but by and by, as you get deeper, it takes its own rhythm. Then
it is no longer chaotic, it takes its own order, it becomes a discipline, but not forced by you. This is
your highest possibility taking possession of your lowest body and moving it.
Latihan is the first step. And, by and by, you will feel so beautiful doing it that you will feel a meeting
is happening between you and the cosmos. But this is only the first step. That’s why in Subud
something is missing. The first step in itself is very beautiful, but it is not the last step. I would like
you to complete it. For thirty minutes at least – sixty will be wonderful; by and by from thirty you
reach to sixty minutes of latihan dancing.
In sixty minutes your body, from pore to pore, from cell to cell, is cleansed; it is a catharsis, you are
completely renewed, all the dirt is burned. That’s what Tilopa says: In Mahamudra all one’s sins are
burned. The past is thrown into fire. It is a new birth, a rebirth. And you feel energy showering all
over you, in and out. And the dance is not only outside. Soon, when you get attuned in it, you will
feel an inner dance also. Not only that your body is dancing, inside the energy is dancing; and they
both cooperate with each other. And then a pulsation happens, and you feel you are pulsating with
the universe – you have found the universal rhythm.
Thirty to sixty minutes is the time: start with thirty, end with sixty. Somewhere in between you will
have the right time. And you will come to know: if you feel attuned nearabout forty minutes, then
that is your right time; if you feel attuned at twenty minutes, then that is your right time. Then your
meditation must go beyond that: if you feel tuned at ten minutes, twenty minutes will do; if you feel
tuned at fifteen minutes, thirty minutes will do. Do it double, don’t take any chances, so really you
are completely cleaned. And end it with a prayer.
When you are completely cleaned and feeling that your body is refreshed – you have been under a
shower of energy, and your whole body is feeling one, undivided; and the substantialness of body is
lost, you feel it more like an energy, a movement, a process, not material – now you are ready. Then
kneel down on the earth.
Kneeling down is beautiful; just like Sufis kneel down, or Mohammedans do their prayer in the
mosque, kneel down like them because that is the best posture for latihan. Then raise both your
hands towards the sky with closed eyes, and feel yourself to be like a hollow vessel, hollow bamboo;
inside, hollow, just like an earthen pot. Your head is the mouth of the pot, and the energy is falling
tremendously on your head as if you are standing under a waterfall. And you will be actually standing
– after the latihan you will feel it; it is like a waterfall, not like a shower. When you are ready it falls
in greater strength, strong, and your body will start trembling, shaking, like a leaf in a strong wind;
or, if you have stood under a waterfall sometime, then you will know. If you have never stood under
one, go to a waterfall and stand under it and feel how it feels. That same feeling will come to you
after latihan. Feel yourself hollow inside, nothing inside, just emptiness – and the energy is filling
you, filling you completely.
Allow it to fall into you as deeply as possible, so it can reach to your farthest corner of your body
and mind and soul. And when you feel it – you are so much filled, and the whole body is shaking –
kneel down, put your head down on the earth, and pour the energy into the earth. When you feel
the energy is overflowing, pour down into the earth. Take from the sky, give it back to the earth, and
you be just a hollow bamboo in between.

This has to be done seven times. Take from the sky and pour down into the earth and kiss the earth,
and pour down – be empty completely. Pour down as completely as you did for filling, be completely
empty. Then raise your hands again, fill again, pour down again. Seven times it has to be done,
because each time it penetrates one chakra of the body, one center of the body; each time it goes
deeper in you. And if you do less than seven times, then you will feel restless after it because the
energy will be hanging somewhere in between.
No, it has to penetrate all the seven chakras of your body so that you become completely hollow, a
passage. The energy falls from the sky and goes into the earth, you are earthed; you simply pass
the energy to the earth, just like electricity. For electricity we have to put an earth wire. The energy
comes from the sky and goes into the earth, you become earthed – just a vessel, a hollow bamboo
passing the energy. Seven times – more you can do, but not less. And this will be a complete
Mahamudra.
If you do it every day, soon, within three months somewhere, one day you will feel you are not there.
Just the energy is pulsating with the universe – nobody is there, the ego is completely lost, the
doer is not. The universe is there, and you are there, the wave pulsating with the ocean – that is
Mahamudra. That is the final orgasm, the most blissful state of consciousness that is possible.
This is just like two lovers making love, but millionfold, and the same phenomenon multiplied by
millions – because now you are making love with the whole universe. That’s why tantra is known as
the yoga of sex; tantra is known as the path of love.
In Mahamudra all one’s sins are burned: in Mahamudra one is released from the prison of this world.
This is the dharma’s supreme torch. Those who disbelieve it are fools, who ever wallow in misery
and sorrow.
And Tilopa is perfectly clear. He is absolutely frank. He says, ”Those who disbelieve it are fools.”
Why call them fools? He does not call them sinners, he does not call them irreligious, he simply
calls them fools – because not believing it they are missing the greatest bliss that life can give them.
They are simply fools! And it cannot happen unless you trust. Unless you trust so much that you
can surrender completely, it cannot happen. All bliss, all moments of bliss, happen only when you
surrender. Even death becomes beautiful if you can surrender to it, then what to say about life? If
you surrender, of course, life is the greatest blessing, it is a benediction. You are missing the ultimate
gift because you cannot trust.
If you want to learn anything, learn trust – nothing else is needed. If you are miserable, nothing else
will help – learn trust. If you don’t feel any meaning in life and you feel meaninglessness, nothing
will help – learn trust. Trust gives meaning because trust makes you capable of allowing the whole
to descend upon you.
THOSE WHO DISBELIEVE IT ARE FOOLS, WHO EVER WALLOW IN MISERY AND SORROW.
TO STRIVE FOR LIBERATION ONE SHOULD RELY ON A GURU. WHEN YOUR MIND RECEIVES
HIS BLESSING EMANCIPATION IS AT HAND.
Why believe in a guru? Why believe in a master? – because the unknown is very far from you. It is
just a dream, a hope at the most, a wish-fulfillment.

You listen to me; I may talk about the bliss, but that bliss remains a word. You may desire it, but you
don’t know what it is, you don’t know the taste of it. It is very very far away from you. You are deep in
misery, in anguish. In your misery and anguish you may start hoping, expecting, desiring bliss, but
that will not help – you need a real taste of it. Who will give it to you? Only one who has tasted it: he
can become the opener. He can act like a catalytic agent. He will not do anything; just his presence,
and from him the unknown flows towards you. He is just like a window. Your doors are closed? –
his doors are not closed. Your windows are closed and you have forgotten how to open them? – his
windows are not closed. Through his window you can have a look at the sky; through him you can
have a glimpse.
A master, a guru, is nothing but a window. One has to pass through him, one has to have a little
taste – then you can also open your own windows; otherwise the whole thing remains verbal. You
can read Tilopa, but unless you find Tilopa nothing will happen to you. Your mind may go on, saying,
”Maybe this man is mad, in some hallucination, dreaming, a philosopher, thinking, a poet.” But how
can this happen? How is it possible for you to be blissful? You have known only misery and suffering,
you have known only poison. You cannot believe in elixir; you have not known it so how can you
believe it?
A master is nothing but a personified phenomenon of the total bliss. In him it is there vibrating. If
you trust him, his vibrations can reach you. A master is not a teacher, he doesn’t teach you. A
master is not concerned with doctrines and principles – a master is a presence. If you trust him,
he is available. A master is an availability. Through him you will have the first glimpse of the divine.
Then you can go on your own.
TO STRIVE FOR LIBERATION ONE SHOULD RELY... ON A MASTER,... ON A GURU. WHEN
YOUR MIND RECEIVES HIS BLESSING EMANCIPATION IS AT HAND.
A master cannot give you emancipation, but he can bring you to the very brink of it. He cannot give
you the emancipation; that has to be achieved by you, because a thing given by someone can be
taken by someone else. Only that which is yours can be yours. A master cannot give you, he can
only bless you – but his blessing is a vital phenomenon. Through him you can look into your own
future. Through him you can be aware of your own destiny. Through him the farthest peaks come
nearer, closer. Through him you start coming up, like a seed trying to sprout towards the sky. His
blessing can water your seed.
In the East, the blessing of the master is very very significant. The West has remained completely
unaware of the phenomenon. The West knows teachers, not masters. Teachers are those who
teach you about truth. A master is one who gives you the taste of it. A teacher may be someone
who does not know himself, he may have learned from other teachers. Seek a master. Teachers
are many, masters are few.
And how will you seek a master? Just move. Whenever you hear a rumor that somebody has
become enlightened, go and remain available. Don’t be much of a thinker, be more of a lover –
because a master is found through feeling. A teacher is found through thinking: listen to the teacher,
his logical appeal will be there, his arguments. Eat the master, drink the master. Listening won’t
help because he is a living phenomenon; the energy is there. If you drink and eat him, then only you
will become aware of a different quality of being.

A great receptivity is needed, a great feminine receptivity is needed to find the master. And if you
are available and a living master is there, suddenly something clicks. There is nothing to do on your
part – you simply be there. It is such a vital energy phenomenon that if you are available something
simply clicks, you are caught. It is a love phenomenon. You cannot prove to anybody else, ”I have
found the master.” There is no proof. Don’t try that because anybody can bring proof against it. You
have found it and you know it; you have tasted and you know it. This knowledge is of the heart, of
the feeling.
Says Tilopa:
TO STRIVE FOR LIBERATION ONE SHOULD RELY ON A GURU. WHEN YOUR MIND RECEIVES
HIS BLESSINGS EMANCIPATION IS AT HAND.
The very word ”guru” is meaningful. The ”master” doesn’t carry that significance. The master seems
to be someone who has mastered a thing, gone under a long training, has become disciplined, has
become a master. ”Guru” is totally different.
The word ”guru” means one who is very very heavy, a heavy cloud just waiting for your thirst to pour
down; a flower heavy with perfume just waiting for your nostrils to be there and it will penetrate. The
word ”guru” means heavy, very heavy – heavy with energy and the unknown, heavy with the divine,
heavy like a woman who is pregnant.
A master is pregnant with God. That’s why in the East we call the guru, God itself. The West cannot
understand it because they think ”God” means the creator of the world. We don’t bother much about
the creator here. We call the guru, God. Why? – because he is pregnant with the divine; he is heavy
with the divine. He is ready to pour down; only your thirst, a thirsty earth is needed.
He has not mastered anything in fact; he has not gone through any training, he has not disciplined
himself. It is not art that he has become a master of – no. He has lived life in its totality; not as a
discipline, but natural and loose. He has not forced himself. He has been moving with the winds;
he has allowed nature to have its own course. And through millions of experiences of suffering and
pain and bliss and happiness he has become mature, he has become ripe. A guru is a ripe fruit just
waiting to fall, heavy. If you are ready to receive, he can fall into you.
A guru is a totally Eastern phenomenon. The West is not yet aware of it. In the West it is difficult to
feel. Why go and bow down to a guru? Why put your head at his feet? Looks humiliating. But if you
want to receive, you have to bow down. He is heavy, he can pour, but then you have to bow down,
otherwise you won’t receive it.
When a disciple with total trust bows down at the feet of his master, something is happening there
which is not visible to the eyes. An energy is falling from the master, entering the disciple. Something
invisible to the eyes is happening there. If you become aware you can see it also – the aura of the
master, his rainbow, pouring himself down into the disciple. You will see it in fact happening.
The master is heavy with divine energy. And he has infinite energy now, he can pour it down to
infinite disciples. He can work with millions of disciples alone. He is never exhausted because now
he is connected with the whole; he has found the source of all. Through him you can also take the
jump into that abyss. Surrender towards God is difficult because you don’t know where God is. He
has never given his address to anybody ever. But a guru can be found. If you ask me what a guru
is, I will tell you: the guru is the address of God.
WHEN YOUR MIND RECEIVES HIS BLESSINGS EMANCIPATION IS AT HAND.
Then you can be certain that you have been accepted. When you can feel the master’s blessings
pouring on you, showering on you like flowers, you can be certain emancipation is at hand.
It happened: One of Buddha’s disciples, Sariputta, one day bowed down at Buddha’s feet. Suddenly
he felt the energy falling on him. He felt a sudden transformation, a mutation of his whole mind, as
if he was being destroyed and created again. He cried, ”No! Wait a little.” The whole assembly of
Buddha’s disciples could not understand what was happening. And he said, ”Wait a little – not so
soon!”
Buddha said, ”But why?”
He said, ”Then these feet will be lost to me. Wait a little. Emancipation is at hand and I would like to
be with you a little longer. Don’t push me away so soon” – because once the master has blessed and
the emancipation is at hand, this is the last thing:one has to say goodbye to the master. Sariputta
said, ”Wait!”
Sariputta became enlightened later on. Buddha told him, ”Now you go. I waited enough. Now you
go and spread whatsoever I have given to you, go and give it to others.”
Sariputta had to go, weeping and crying. Somebody asked, ”You have become enlightened and you
weep and cry?”
He said, ”Yes, I have become enlightened – but I can throw away the bliss of enlightenment if Buddha
allows me to live at his feet.”
Such deep gratitude – and then wherever Sariputta lived, every day in the morning he would bow
down to the direction where he knew Buddha was moving. And people asked him again and again,
”Why do you do this? To whom do you bow down?” He said, ”Buddha is moving in the south.”
When the last days of Sariputta came, he inquired, ”Where is Buddha right now? – because I
would like to die bowing down in that direction.” And he died bowing down in the direction where
Buddha was. When the energy is received, when the final benediction comes from the master – the
emancipation is at hand – one has to say goodbye.
In Zen, when a disciple comes to a master in Japan, he brings his mat. He unrolls his mat before
the master, sits on the mat, listens to the master; every day comes, follows whatsoever he says,
leaves the mat there – for years together. Then the day he receives the final blessing, he rolls up
the mat again, takes the mat back, bows down, leaves the master. That mat is symbolic. Whenever
a disciple rolls up the mat again, others know he has received the benediction. Now this is the final
goodbye.

ALAS, ALL THINGS IN THIS WORLD ARE MEANINGLESS, THEY ARE BUT SORROW’S SEEDS.
SMALL TEACHINGS LEAD TO ACTS – ONE SHOULD ONLY FOLLOW TEACHINGS THAT ARE
GREAT.
Tantra is the great teaching. Small teachings tell you what to do, what not to do. They give you ten
commandments: ”Do this, don’t do that” – small teachings. A great teaching doesn’t give you any
commandment. It is not concerned with what you do, it is concerned with what you are. Your being,
your center, your consciousness – that is the only thing significant.
Says Tilopa:
ALAS, ALL THINGS IN THIS WORLD ARE MEANINGLESS, THEY ARE BUT SORROW’S SEEDS.
SMALL TEACHINGS LEAD TO ACTS – ONE SHOULD FOLLOW TEACHINGS THAT ARE GREAT.
In this world, everything is the seed of sorrow. But a ray of light enters into the world whenever a
person becomes enlightened. In this world everything is a seed of sorrow, but a light-ray comes
from the above whenever a person becomes enlightened. Follow that ray of light and you can reach
to the very source of the light, the sun.
”And remember,” says Tilopa, ”don’t become a victim of small teachings.” Many are. People come to
me, they say, ”We are vegetarians. Will it lead us to enlightenment?” – a very small teaching. They
say, ”We don’t eat in the night. Will it lead us to enlightenment?” – a very small teaching. They say,
”We believe in celibacy” – a very small teaching. They do many things, but one thing they never
touch – that is their being. They manage their character, they try to be as sagely as possible, but
the whole thing remains a decoration. A discipline from without is a decoration. It should come
from within, it should spread towards the periphery from the center. It should not be forced from the
periphery towards the center.
The great teaching is: You are already that which you can be – realize this. You are already the goal
– be aware of this. This very moment your destiny can be fulfilled. For what are you waiting? Don’t
believe in gradual steps – take the jump, be courageous. Only one who is courageous can follow
the great teaching of tantra.
Afraid, scared – afraid of dying, scared of losing yourself, fearful of surrender – you will become a
victim of small teachings, because you can manage small teachings. Not to eat this, not to do this,
you can manage; you remain in control. The great teaching is to surrender, to surrender your control
and let the whole take you away wherever it would like to take. Don’t swim against the current. Leave
yourself in the river, become the river – and the river is already going to the sea. This is the great
teaching.