Shiva said: In rain during a black night, enter that blackness as the form of forms.

INSTRUCTIONS

How can you enter blackness? Three things.

Step 1:

Stare into blackness. Difficult. It is easy to stare at a flame, at any source of light, because it is there as an object, pointed; you can direct your attention to it. Darkness is not an object; it is everywhere, it is all around. You cannot see it as an object. Stare into the vacuum. All around it is there; you just look into it. Feel at ease and look into it. It will start entering your eyes. And when the darkness enters your eyes, you are entering into it.

Remain with open eyes when doing this technique in the dark night. Don't close your eyes, because with closed eyes you have a different darkness that is your own, mental; it is not real. Really, it is a negative part; it is not positive darkness. Here is light: you close your eyes and you can have a darkness, but that darkness is simply the negative of the light. Just as when you look at the window and then you close your eyes, you have a negative figure of the window. All our experience is of light, so when we close our eyes we have a negative experience of light which we call darkness. It is not real, it won't do.
 
Open your eyes, remain with open eyes in darkness, and you will have a different darkness - the positive darkness that is there. Stare into it. Go on staring into darkness. Your tears will start, your eyes will get sore, they will hurt. Don't get worried, just go on. And the moment the darkness, the real darkness which is there, enters in your eyes, it will give you a very deep soothing feeling. When real darkness enters in you, you will be filled by it. And this entering of darkness will empty you of all negative darkness. This is a very deep phenomenon. The darkness that you have within is a negative thing; it is against the light. It is not the absence of light; it is against the light. It is not the darkness that Shiva is speaking of as the form of all forms - the real darkness that's there.

We are so afraid of it that we have created many sources of light just as protection, and we live in a lighted world. Then we close our eyes and the lighted world reflects negatively inside. We have lost contact with the real darkness that is there - the darkness of the Essenes, or the darkness of Shiva. We have no contact with it. We have become so much afraid of it that we have turned ourselves completely away. We are standing with our backs to it. So this will be difficult, but if you can do it, it is miraculous, it is magical. You will have a different being altogether. When darkness enters you, you enter into it. It is always reciprocal, mutual. You cannot enter into any cosmic phenomenon without the cosmic phenomenon entering into you. You cannot rape it, you cannot force any entry. If you are available, open, vulnerable, and if you give way for any cosmic realm to enter in you, then only will you enter into it. It is always mutual. You cannot force it; you can only allow it.

It is difficult to find real darkness in cities now; difficult in our houses to find real darkness. With the unreal light we have made everything un¬real. Even our darkness is polluted, it is not pure. So it is good to move to some remote place only to feel darkness. Just go to a very remote village where there is no electricity, or move to a mountain peak. Just be there for one week to experience pure darkness.

You will come back a different man, because in those seven days of absolute darkness, all the fears, all the primitive fears, will come up. You will have to face monsters, you will have to face your own uncon¬scious. The whole humanity will... it will be as if you are passing through the whole passage that has passed, and deep from your unconscious many things will arise. They will look real. You may get afraid, scared, because they will be so real - and they are just your mental creations.

You have to come to terms with your unconscious. And this meditation on darkness will absorb all your madness completely. Try it. Even in your home you can try it. Every night, for one hour remain with darkness. Don't do anything, just stare into darkness. You will have a melting feeling, and you will feel that something is entering you and you are entering into something.

Staying, living with darkness for three months, for one hour a day, you will lose all feeling of individuality, of separation. Then you will not be an island; you will become the ocean. You will be one with darkness. And darkness is so oceanic: nothing is so vast, nothing is so eternal. And nothing is so near you, and of nothing are you so scared and afraid. It is just by the corner, always waiting.

Step 2:

Lie down and feel as if you are near your mother. The darkness is the mother, the mother of all. Think: when there was nothing, what was there? You cannot think of anything other than darkness. If everything disappears, what will still be there? Darkness will be there. Darkness is the mother, the womb, so lie down and feel that you are lying in the womb of your mother. And it will become real, it will become warm, and sooner or later you will start feeling that the darkness, the womb, is enveloping you from everywhere, you are in it.

Step 3:

Moving, going to work, talking, eating, doing whatsoever, carry a patch of darkness within you. The darkness that has entered in you, just carry it. As we were discussing about the method of carrying a flame, carry darkness. As I said to you, if you carry a flame and feel you are light, your body will start radiating a certain strange light and those who are sensitive will start feeling it; the same will happen with darkness.

If you carry darkness within you, your whole body will become so relaxed and calm, so cool, that it will be felt. And as when you carry light within you some people will become attracted to you, when you carry darkness within you, some people will simply escape from you. They will become afraid and scared. They will not be able to bear so silent a being; it will become unbearable to them. Carrying darkness within for the whole day will help you very much, because then when you contemplate and meditate on darkness in the night, the inner darkness that you have carried the whole day will help you to meet - the inner will come to meet the outer.

And just by remembering that you are carrying darkness - you are filled with darkness, every pore of the body, every cell of the body is filled with darkness - you will feel so relaxed. Try it. You will feel so relaxed. Everything in you will be slowed down. You will not be able to run, you will walk, and that walk will be slowed down also. You will walk slowly, just as a pregnant woman walks. You will walk slowly, very carefully. You are carrying something.

And quite the opposite will happen when you are carrying a flame: your walk will become faster; rather, you would like to run. There will be more movement, you will become more active. Carrying darkness you will be relaxed. Others will start feeling that you are lazy. In the days when I was at the university, I was doing this experiment for two years. I became so lazy that even to get out of bed in the morn¬ing was difficult. My professors became very much disturbed about it, and they thought something had gone wrong with me - either I was ill, or I had become absolutely indifferent. One professor who loved me very much, the head of my department, became so worried that on my examination days he would come to fetch me from the hostel in the morning just to lead me to the examination hall so that I would be there on time. Every day he would see that I had entered the hall, and only then would he feel okay and go home.

Try it. It is one of the most beautiful experiences in life to carry darkness in your womb, to become dark. Walking, eating, sitting, doing whatsoever, remember, the dark¬ness is filled in you; you are filled with it. And then see how things change. You cannot get excited, you cannot be very active, you cannot be tense. Your sleep will become so deep that dreams will disappear and the whole day you will move as if intoxicated.