第2章 Chapter 2

Seeing Life as a Dream 29 October 1969 am in Meditation Camp at Dwarka, Gujarat, India A few questions have been asked about last nights talk. Question 1 ONE FRIEND HAS ASKED: ONE CAN DIE FULLY CONSCIOUS, BUT HOW CAN ONE BE IN FULL CONSCIOUSNESS AT BIRTH? Actually, death and birth are not two events, they are two ends of the same phenomenon -- just like two sides of the same coin.

If a man can have one side of a coin in his hand, the other side will be in his hand automatically. Its not possible to have one side of a coin in my hand and then wonder how to get the other side -- the other side becomes available automatically. Death and birth are two sides of the same phenomenon.

If death occurs in a conscious state, then birth inevitably takes place in a conscious state. If death occurs in an unconscious state, then birth happens in a state of unconsciousness too. If a person dies fully conscious at the time of his death, he will be filled with consciousness at the moment of his next birth also.

Since we all die in a state of unconsciousness and are born in a state of unconsciousness, we remember nothing of our past lives. However, the memory of our past lives always remains present in some corner of our minds, and this memory can be revived if we so desire. With birth we cannot do anything directly; whatsoever we can do is possible only in relation to death.

Nothing can be done after death; whatsoever is to be done must be done before death. A person dying in an unconscious state cannot do anything until he is born again -- there is no way; he will continue to remain unconscious. Hence, if you died before in an unconscious state, you will have to be born again in an unconscious state.

Whatsoever is to be done must be done before death, because we have lots of opportunities before death, the opportunity of a whole lifetime. With this opportunity an effort can be made towards awakening. So, it will be a great mistake if someone keeps waiting until the moment of death to awaken.

You cant awaken at the time of death. The sadhana, the journey towards awakening, will have to begin long before death; a preparation will have to be made for it. Without preparation one is sure to remain unconscious in death. Although, in a way, this unconscious state is for your own good if you are not yet ready to be born in a conscious state.

Around 1915, the ruler of Kashi had an abdominal operation. This was the first such operation ever performed in the world without the use of anesthesia. There were three British physicians who refused to perform the operation without giving anesthesia, saying it was impossible to have a mans stomach open for one-and-a-half to two hours during a major operation without making the patient unconscious.

It was dangerous -- the danger was that the patient might scream, move, jump or fall because of the unbearable pain; anything might happen. Hence the doctors were not ready. But the ruler maintained there was no cause for concern as long as he remained in meditation and said he could easily remain in meditation for one-and-a-half to two hours.

He was not willing to take the anesthetic; he said he wished to be operated upon in his conscious state. But the physicians were reluctant; they believed it was dangerous to have someone go through such pain in a conscious state. However, seeing no other alternative, the physicians first asked him, as an experiment, to go into meditation.

Then they made a cut in his hand -- there was not even a tremor. Only two hours later did he complain that his hand hurt; he did not feel anything for two hours. Subsequently, the operation was performed. That was the first operation to be performed in the world where physicians worked on a patients open stomach for an hour-and-a-half without giving anesthetic. And the ruler remained fully conscious throughout the operation. Deep meditation is required to be in such awareness. The meditation has to be so deep as to make one totally aware, without an iota of doubt, that the self and the body are separate. Even the slightest identification with the body can be dangerous. Death is the biggest surgical operation there is. No physician has ever performed an operation as big as this -- because in death there is a mechanism to transplant the entire vital energy, the prana, from one physical body into another physical body. No one has ever performed such a phenomenal operation, nor can it ever be done. We may sever one part of the body or another, or transplant one part or another, but in the case of death, the entire vital energy has to be taken from one body and entered into another. Nature has kindly seen to it that we become fully unconscious at the occurrence of this phenomenon. It is for our own good; we might not be able to bear that much pain. It is possible that the reason why we become unconscious is because the pain of death is so unbearable. It is in our own interest that we become unconscious; nature does not allow us to remember passing through death. In every life we repeat almost the same mistakes we have repeated in our past lives. If we could only recall what we did in our past lives, we might not fall into the same ditches again. And if we could only remember what we did throughout our previous lives, we could no longer remain the same as we are now. It is impossible we could remain the same, because time and time again we have amassed wealth and every time death has made all that wealth meaningless. If we could recall this, we might not carry, any longer, the same craze for money within us as we did before. We have fallen in love a thousand times, and time and time again it has ultimately proven to be meaningless. If we could recall this, our craze for falling in love with others and for having others fall in love with us would disappear. Thousands upon thousands of times we have been ambitious, egoistic; we have attained success, high position, and in the end all of it has turned out to be useless, all of it has turned to dust. If we could recall this, perhaps our ambition would lose its steam, and then we would not remain the same people we are now. Since we do not remember our past lives, we keep moving in almost the same circle. Man does not realize that he has gone through the same circle many times before, and that he is going through it once again in the same hope he carried with him so often before. Then death ruins all hopes, and once again the cycle begins. Man moves in circles like an ox on a water-wheel. One can save oneself from this harm, but it requires great awareness and continuous experimentation. One cannot start waiting for death all at once, because one cannot become suddenly aware during such a big operation, under such a great trauma. We will have to experiment slowly. We will have to experiment slowly with small miseries to see how we can be aware while going through them. For example, you have a headache. At one and the same time you become aware and begin to feel that you have a headache, not that the head is in pain. So one will have to experiment on the little headache and learn to feel that, "The pain is in the head and I am aware of it. " When Swami Ram was in America people had great difficulty following him in the beginning. When the president of America paid him a visit, he was puzzled too. He asked, "What language is this?" -- because Ram used to speak in the third person. He would not say, "I am hungry," he would say, "Ram is hungry. " He would not say, "I have a headache," he would say, "Ram has a severe headache. " In the beginning people had great difficulty following him. For example, he once said, "Last night Ram was freezing. " When asked who he was referring to, he replied that he was referring to Ram. When he was asked, "Which Ram?" he said, pointing to himself, "This Ram -- the poor guy was freezing cold last night. We kept laughing and asked, Hows the cold Ram?" He would say, "Ram was walking on the street and some people began swearing at him. We had a belly laugh and said, How do you like the swearing, Ram? If you seek honor, you are bound to meet with insult. " When people asked, "Who are you talking about, which Ram?" he would point to himself. You will have to start experimenting with minor kinds of miseries. You encounter them every day in life; they are present every day -- not only miseries, you will have to include happiness in the experiment also, because it is more difficult to be aware in happiness than it is to be in misery. It is not so difficult to experience that your head and the pain in it are two separate things, but it is more difficult to experience that, "The body is separate and the joy of being healthy is separate from me too -- I am not even that. " It is difficult to maintain this distance when we are happy because in happiness we like to be close to it. While in misery, we obviously want to feel separate, away from it. Should it become certain that the pain is separate from us, we want it to stay that way so we can be free of it. You will have to experiment on how to remain aware in misery as well as in happiness. One who carries out such experiments often brings misery upon himself, of his own free will, in order to experience it. This is basically the secret of all asceticism: it is an experiment to undergo voluntary pain. For example, a man is on a fast. By remaining hungry he is trying to find out what effect hunger has on his consciousness. Ordinarily, a person who is on a fast hasnt the slightest notion of what he is doing -- he only knows that he is hungry and looks forward to having his meal the next day. The fundamental purpose of fasting is to experience that, "Hunger is there, but it is far away from me. The body is hungry, I am not. " So by inducing hunger voluntarily, one is trying to know, from within, if hunger is there. Ram is hungry -- I am not hungry. I know hunger is there, and this has to become a continuous knowing until I reach a point where a distance occurs between me and the hunger -- where I no longer remain hungry -- even in hunger I no longer remain hungry. Only the body stays hungry and I know it. I simply remain a knower. Then the meaning of fasting becomes very profound; then it does not mean merely remaining hungry. Normally, one who goes on a fast keeps repeating twenty-four hours a day that he is hungry, that he has not eaten any food that day. His mind continues to fantasize about the food he will eat the next day and plans for it. This kind of fasting is meaningless. Then it is merely abstaining from food. The distinction between abstaining from food and fasting, upvasa, is this: fasting means residing closer and closer. Closer to what? It means coming closer to the self by creating a distance from the body. The word upvasa does not imply going without food. Upvasa means residing closer and closer. Closer to what? It means closer to the self, residing closer to the self and further away from the body. Then it is also possible that a man may eat and yet remain in the state of fasting. If, while eating, he knows from within that eating is taking place elsewhere and the consciousness is totally separate from the act, then it is upvasa. And it is also possible that a man may not really be fasting even though he may have denied himself food; for he may be too conscious of being hungry, that he is dying of hunger. Upvasa is a psychological awareness of the separation of the self and the physical state of hunger. Other pains of a similar type can also be created voluntarily, but creating such voluntary pain is a very deep experiment. A man may lie on thorns just to experience that the thorns only prick the body and not his self. Thus a misery can be invited in order to experience the disassociation of consciousness from the physical plane. But there are already enough uninvited miseries in the world -- no need to invite any more. Already much misery is available -- one should start experimenting with it. Miseries come uninvited anyway. If, during the uninvited misery, one can maintain the awareness that "I am separate from my suffering" then the suffering becomes a sadhana, a spiritual discipline. One will have to continue this sadhana even with happiness which has come on its own. In suffering, it is possible we may succeed in deceiving ourselves because one would like to believe that "I am not pain. " But when it comes to happiness, a man wants to identify himself with it because he already believes that "I am happy. " Hence the sadhana is even more difficult with happiness. Nothing, in fact, is more painful than feeling that we are separate from our happiness. Actually, a man wants to drown himself completely in happiness and forget that he is separate from it. Happiness drowns us; misery disconnects us and sets us apart from the self. Somehow, we come to believe that our identification with suffering is only because we have no other choice, but we welcome happiness with our whole being. Be aware in the pain which comes your way; be aware in the happiness which comes your way -- and occasionally, just as an experiment, be aware in invited pain also, because in it, things are a little different. We can never fully identify ourselves with anything we invite upon ourselves. The very knowledge that it is an invited thing creates the distance. The guest who comes to your home does not belong there -- he is a guest. Similarly, when we invite suffering as our guest, it is already something separate from us. While walking barefoot a thorn gets into your foot. This is an accident and its pain will be overwhelming. This unfortunate accident is different from when you purposely take a thorn and press it against your foot -- knowing every moment that you are piercing the foot with the thorn and watching the pain. I am not asking you to go ahead and torture yourself; as it is, there is enough suffering already -- what I mean is: first be alert in going through both suffering and happiness; then later, one day, invite some misery and see how far away from it you can set your consciousness. Remember, the experiment of inviting misery is of great significance, because everyone wants to invite happiness but no one wants to invite misery. And the interesting thing is that the misery we dont want comes on its own, and the happiness we seek never comes. Even when it comes by chance, it remains outside our door. The happiness we beckon to never comes, while the happiness we never ask for walks right in. When a person gathers enough strength to invite misery, it means he is so happy that he can invite suffering now. He is so blissful that now there is no difficulty for him to invite suffering. Now misery can be asked to come and stay. But this is a very deep experiment. Until we are prepared to undertake such an experiment, we must try to become aware of whatever suffering comes our way on its own. If we go on becoming more and more aware each time we come across misery, we will gather enough capability to remain conscious even when death arrives. Then nature will allow us to stay awake in death too. Nature, as well, will figure that if the man can stay conscious in pain, he can also remain conscious in death. No one can stay conscious in death all of a sudden, without having had a previous experience of the kind. A man named P. D. Ouspensky died some years ago. He was a great mathematician from Russia. He is the only person in this century who has done such extensive experiments in relation to death. Three months before his death, he became very ill. The physicians advised him to stay in bed, but in spite of this, he made such an incredible effort it is beyond imagination. He would not sleep at night; he traveled, walked, ran, was always on the move. The physicians were aghast; they said he needed complete rest. Ouspensky called all his close friends near him but did not say anything to them. The friends who stayed with him for three months, until his death, have said that for the first time they saw, before their eyes, a man accepting death in a conscious state. They asked him why did he not follow the physicians advice. Ouspensky replied, "I want to experience all kinds of pain, lest the pain of death be so great that I might become unconscious. I want to go through every pain before death; that can create such a stamina in me that I can be totally conscious when death comes. " So for three months he made an exemplary effort to go through all kinds of pain. His friends have written that those who were fit and hearty would get tired, but not Ouspensky. The physicians insisted that he must have complete rest, otherwise it would cause him great harm -- but to no avail. The night he died, Ouspensky kept walking back and forth in his room. The physicians who examined him declared that his legs had no more strength left to walk -- and yet he kept walking the whole night. He said, "I want to die walking, lest I might die sitting and become unconscious, or I might die sleeping and become unconscious. " As he walked, he told his friends, "Just a little bit longer -- ten more steps and all will be over. I am sinking, but I shall keep walking until I have taken the last step. I want to keep on doing something until the very end, otherwise death may catch me unawares. I may relax and go to sleep -- I dont want this to happen at the moment of death. " Ouspensky died while taking his last step. Very few people on this earth have died walking like this. He fell down walking; that is, he fell only when his death occurred. Taking his last step, he said, "Thats it; this is my last step. Now I am about to fall. But before departing let me tell you I dropped my body long ago. You will see my body being released now, but I have been seeing for a long time now that the body has dropped and still I exist. The links with the body have all been broken and yet, inside, I still exist. Now only the body will fall -- there is no way for me to fall down. " At the time of his death, his friends saw a kind of light in his eyes. A peace, joy and radiance were visible which shine through when one is standing on the threshold of the world beyond. But one needs to make preparations for this, a continuous preparation. If a person prepares himself fully, then death becomes a wonderful experience. There is no other phenomenon more valuable than this, because what is revealed at the time of death can never be known otherwise. Then death looks like a friend, for only at the occurrence of death can we experience that we are a living organism -- not before that. Remember, the darker the night, the brighter the stars. The flash of lightning stands out like a silver strand, the darker the clouds are. Similarly, when, in its full form, death surrounds us from all sides, at that moment the very center of life manifests in all its glory -- never before that. Death surrounds us like darkness, and in the middle, that very center of life -- call it atman, the soul, shines in its full splendor; the surrounding darkness makes it luminous. But at that moment we become unconscious. At the very moment of death, which could otherwise become the moment to know our being, we become unconscious. Hence one will have to make preparations towards raising ones consciousness. Meditation is that preparation. Meditation is an experiment in how one attains to a gradual, voluntary death. It is an experiment in how one moves within and then leaves the body. If one meditates throughout his life, he will attain to total meditation at the moment of death. When death happens in full consciousness, the soul of the person takes its next birth in full consciousness. Then the very first day of his new life is not a day of ignorance but of full knowledge. Even in the mothers womb he remains fully conscious. Only one more birth is possible for one who has died in a conscious state. There is no other birth possible for him after that -- because one who has experienced what birth is, what death is and what life is, attains liberation. One who has taken birth in awareness, we have called him avatara, tirthankara, Buddha, Jesus, Krishna. And the thing that distinguishes them from the rest of us is awareness. They are awakened and we are asleep. Having taken conscious birth, this becomes their final journey on earth. They have something we dont have, which, painstakingly, they continue to bring to us. The difference between the awakened ones and us is simply this: their previous death and the birth thereafter happened in a state of awareness -- hence they live their entire life in awareness. People in Tibet do a little experiment called bardo. It is a very valuable experiment, carried out only at the time of death. When someone is about to die, people who know gather around him and make him do Bardo. But only he who has meditated in his life can be made to go through Bardo -- not otherwise. In the experiment of Bardo, as soon as a person dies, instructions are given from the outside that he should remain fully awake. He is told to keep watching whatever follows next, because in that state, many times things happen which the dying person can never understand. New phenomena are not so easy to follow right away. If a person can stay conscious after death, for a while he will not know that he is dead. When people carry his dead body and start burning it at the cremation ground only then will he come to know for certain that he is dead -- because nothing actually dies inside, just a distance is created. In life, this distance has never been experienced before. The experience is so novel it cannot be grasped through conventional definition. The person merely feels that something has separated. But something has died, and that he only understands when people all around him start weeping and crying, falling over his body in grief, getting ready to carry the body away for cremation. There is a reason why the body is brought for cremation so soon. The reason for burning or cremating the body as soon as possible is to assure the soul that the body is dead, that it is burned to ashes. But this a man can know only if he has died in awareness; a man dying in an unconscious state cannot know this. So in order for a man to see his body burning in Bardo, he is prompted, "Take a good look at your burning body. Dont run or move away in haste. When people bring your body for cremation, make sure you accompany them and be present there. Watch your body being cremated with perfect attention, so that next time you do not get attached to the physical body. " Once you see something burning to ashes, your attachment for it disappears. Others will, of course, see your body being cremated, but if you also see it, you will lose all your attachment for it. Normally, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, the man is unconscious at the time of death; he has no knowledge of it. On the one occasion when he is conscious, he moves away from watching his burning body; he escapes from the cremation ground. So in Bardo he is told, "Look, dont miss this opportunity. Watch your body being cremated; just watch it once and for all. Watch that which you have been identifying your self with all along being destroyed totally. Watch it being reduced to ashes for certain, so that you may remember in your next birth who you are. " As soon as a person dies he enters into a new world, one we know nothing about. That world can be scary and frightening to us because it is neither like nor unlike any of our experiences. In fact it has no connection with life on earth whatsoever. Facing this new world is more frightening than it would be if a man were to find himself in a strange country where everyone was a stranger to him, where he was unacquainted with their language, with their ways of living. He would obviously be very perturbed and confused . The world we live in is a world of physical bodies. As we leave this world the incorporeal world begins -- a world we have never experienced. It is even more frightening, because in our world, no matter how strange the place, how different its people and their ways of living, there is still a bond between us and them: it is a realm of human beings. Entering into the world of bodiless spirits can be an experience frightening beyond imagination. Ordinarily, we pass through it in an unconscious state, and so we dont notice it. But one who goes through it in a conscious state gets into great difficulty. So in Bardo there is an attempt to explain to the person what kind of a world it will be, what will happen there, what kind of beings he will come across. Only those who have been through deep meditation can be taken through this experiment -- not otherwise. Lately, I have often felt that those friends who are practicing meditation can be taken into the Bardo experiment in some form or other. But this is possible only when they have gone through deep meditation; otherwise, they would not even be able to hear what is being said to them. They would not be able to hear what is being said at the moment of death, or follow what is being told to them. In order to follow what is being said, a very silent and empty mind is needed. As the consciousness begins to fade and disappear, and as all earthly ties start being severed, only a very silent mind can hear messages given from this world; they cannot be heard otherwise. Remember, it can be done only in respect to death, if anything; nothing can be done with respect to birth. But whatsoever we do with death, it consequently affects our birth as well. We are born in the same state in which we die. An awakened one exercises his choice in selecting the womb. This shows that he never chooses anything blindly, unconsciously. He chooses his parents just as a rich man chooses his house. A poor man cannot have a house of his choice. You need a certain capacity to choose. One needs a capability to buy a house. A poor man never chooses his house. One should say that actually the house chooses the poor man; a poor house chooses a poor man. A millionaire decides where he should reside, what the garden should look like, where the doors and windows should be fixed -- the sunlight should enter from the east or west; how the ventilation should be, how spacious the house should be -- he chooses everything. An awakened one chooses a womb for himself; that is his choice. Individuals like Mahavira or Buddha are not born anywhere and everywhere. They take birth after considering all possibilities: how the body will be and from which parents it will be conceived; what the energy will be like, how powerful he will be; what kind of facilities will be available to him. They take birth after looking into all of this. They have a clear choice of what to choose, where to go; hence, from the very first day of their birth they live the life of their own choice. The joy of living a life of ones own choice is altogether different, because freedom begins with having a life of ones own choice. There cannot be the same kind of joy in a life which is given to you because then it becomes servitude. In such cases one is merely pushed into life and then whatever happens, happens -- the person has no role to play in it. If such an awakening becomes possible then the choice can definitely be made. If the very birth happens out of our choice, then we can live the rest of our lives in choice. Then we can live like a jeevan-mukta. One who dies in an awakened state is born in an awakened state and then he lives his life in a liberated state. We often hear the word jeevan-mukta, although we may not know what the word means. Jeevan-mukta means: one who is born in an awakened state. Only such a person can be a jeevan-mukta; otherwise he may work his whole life for liberation, yet he can attain freedom only in his next life -- he will not be free in this life. In order to be a jeevan-mukta in this life a man must have the freedom to choose from the very first day of his birth. And this is possible only if one has attained to full consciousness in the dying moment of ones previous life. But at this point that is not the question. Life is here, death has not arrived yet. It is sure to come; there is nothing more certain than death. There can be doubt regarding other things, but about death nothing whatsoever is in doubt. There are people who have doubts about God, there are others who have doubts about the soul, but you may never have come across a man who has doubts about death. It is inevitable -- it is sure to come; it is already on its way. It is approaching closer and closer every moment. We can utilize the moments which are available before death for our awakening. Meditation is a technique to that effect. My effort in these three days will be to help you understand that meditation is the technique for that very awakening. Question 2 A FRIEND HAS ASKED: WHAT IS THE RELATION BETWEEN MEDITATION AND JATI-SMARAN, PAST LIFE REMEMBERING? Jati-smaran means: a method of recalling past lives. It is a way to remember our previous existences. It is a form of meditation. It is a specific application of meditation. For example, one might ask, "What is a river, and what is a canal? Our answer would be that the canal is a specific application of the river itself -- well planned, but controlled and systematic. The river is chaotic, unrestrained; it too will reach somewhere, but its destination is not certain. The destination of the canal is assured. Meditation is like a big river -- it will reach to the ocean; it is sure to reach. Meditation will surely bring you to God. There are, however, other intermediary applications of meditation also. Like small tributaries these can be directed into canals of meditation. Jati-smaran is one such auxiliary method of meditation. We can channelize the power of meditation towards our past lives also; meditation simply means the focusing of attention. There can be applications where ones attention is focused on a given object, and one such application is jati-smaran -- focusing on the dormant memories of past lives. Remember, memories are never erased; a memory either remains latent or it arises. But the latent memory appears to be erased. If I ask you what you did on January 1, 1950, you will not be able to answer -- which does not mean that you might not have done anything on that day. But suddenly the day of January 1, 1950 feels like a total blank. It could not have been blank; as it passed, it was filled with activity. But today it feels like a blank. Similarly, today will become blank tomorrow as well. Ten years from now there will be no trace left of today. So it is not that January 1, 1950 did not exist, or that you did not exist on that day -- what is implied is that since you are unable to recall that day, how can you believe it ever existed? But it did exist and there is a way to know about it. Meditation can be focused in that direction as well. As soon as the light of meditation falls on that day, to your surprise you will see that it looks more alive than it ever was before. For example, a person enters a dark room and moves around with a flashlight. When he turns the light to the left, the right side becomes dark -- but nothing disappears on the right side. When he moves the light to the right, the right side becomes alive again, but the left side remains hidden in the dark. Meditation has a focus, and if one wants to channel it in a particular direction then it has to be used like a flashlight. If, however, one wants to turn it towards the divine, then meditation has to be applied like a lamp. Please understand this carefully. The lamp has no focus of its own; it is unfocused. A lamp merely burns and its light spreads all around. A lamp has no interest in lighting up one direction or the other; whatsoever falls within the radius of light is lit up. But the form of a flashlight is like a focused lamp. In a flashlight we keep all the light and shine it in one direction. So it is possible that under a burning lamp things may become visible, but hazy, and in order to see them clearly we concentrate the light on one place -- it becomes a flashlight; then the thing becomes clearly visible. However, the remaining objects are lost to view. In fact, if a man wants to see an object clearly he will have to focus his total meditation in one direction only and turn the rest of the area into darkness. One who wants to know the truth of life directly will develop his meditation like a lamp -- that will be his sole purpose. And, in fact, the lamps only objective is to see itself; if it can shine this much it is enough -- thats the end of it. But if some special application of the lamp has to be made -- such as remembering past lives -- then meditation will have to be channeled in one direction. I will share with you two or three clues as to how meditation can be channelized in that direction. I wont give you all the clues because, most likely, hardly any of you have any intention of using them, and those who have can see me personally. So I will mention two or three clues which, of course, wont really enable you to experiment with remembering past lives, but will give you just an idea. I wont discuss the whole thing because its not advisable for everyone to experiment with this idea. Also, this experiment can often put you in danger. Let me tell you of an incident so that what I am saying becomes clear to you. For about two or three years, in respect to meditation, a lady professor stayed in touch with me. She was very insistent on experimenting with jati-smaran, on learning about her past life. I helped her with the experiment; however, I also advised her that it would be better if she didnt do the experiment until her meditation was fully developed, otherwise it could be dangerous. As it is, a single lifes memories are difficult to bear -- should the memories of the past three or four lives break the barrier and flood in, a person can go mad. Thats why nature has planned it so we go on forgetting the past. Nature has given us a greater ability to forget more than you can remember, so that your mind does not have a greater burden than it can carry. A heavy burden can be borne only after the capacity of your mind has increased, and trouble begins when the weight of these memories falls on you before this capacity has been raised. But she remained persistent. She paid no heed to my advice and went into the experiment. When the flood of her past lifes memory finally burst upon her, she came running to me around two oclock in the morning. She was a real mess; she was in great distress. She said, "Somehow this has got to stop. I dont ever want to look at that side of things. " But it is not so easy to stop the tide of memory once it has broken loose. It is very difficult to shut the door once it crashes down -- the door does not simply open, it breaks open. It took about fifteen days -- only then did the wave of memories stop. What was the problem? This lady used to claim that she was very pious, a woman of impeccable character. When she encountered the memory of her past life, when she was a prostitute, and the scenes of her prostitution began to emerge, her whole being was shaken. Her whole morality of this life was disturbed. In this sort of revelation, it is not as if the visions belong to someone else -- the same woman who claimed to be chaste now saw herself as a prostitute. It often happens that someone who was a prostitute in a past life becomes deeply virtuous in the next; it is a reaction to the suffering of the past life. It is the memory of the pain and the hurt of the previous life that turns her into a chaste woman. It often happens that people who were sinners in past lives become saints in this life. Hence there is quite a deep relationship between sinners and saints. Such a reaction often takes place, and the reason is, what we come to know hurts us and so we swing to the opposite extreme. The pendulum of our minds keeps moving in the opposite direction. No sooner does the pendulum reach the left than it moves back to the right. It barely touches the right when it swings back to the left. When you see the pendulum of a clock moving towards the left, be assured it is gathering energy to move back to the right -- it will go as far to the right as it has gone to the left. Hence, in life it often happens that a virtuous person becomes a sinner, and a sinner becomes virtuous. This is very common; this sort of oscillation occurs in everyones life. Do not think, therefore, that it is a general rule that one who has become a holy man in this life must have been a holy man in his past life also. It is not necessarily so. What is necessarily so is the exact reverse of it -- he is laden with the pain of what he went through in his past life and has turned to the opposite. I have heard. . . . A holy man and a prostitute once lived opposite each other. Both died on the same day. The soul of the prostitute was to be taken to heaven, and that of the holy man, however, to hell. The envoys who had come to take them away were very puzzled. They kept asking each other, "What went wrong? Is this a mistake? Why are we to take the holy man to hell? Wasnt he a holy man?" The wisest among them said, "He was a holy man all right, but he envied the prostitute. He always brooded over the parties at her place and the pleasures that went on there. The notes of music which came drifting to his house would jolt him to his very core. No admirer of the prostitute, sitting in front of her, was ever moved as much as he -- listening to the sounds coming from her residence, the sounds of the small dancing bells she wore on her ankles. His whole attention always remained focused on her place. Even while worshipping God, his ears were tuned to the sounds which came from her house. "And the prostitute? While she languished in the pit of misery, she always wondered what unknown bliss the holy man was in. Whenever she saw him carrying flowers for morning worship, she wondered, When will I be worthy to take flowers of worship to the temple? I am so impure that I can hardly even gather enough courage to enter the temple. The holy man was never as lost in the incense smoke, in the shining lamps, in the sounds of worship as the prostitute was. The prostitute always longed for the life of the holy man, and the holy man always craved for the pleasures of the prostitute. " Their interests and attitudes, so totally opposite each others, so totally different from each others, had completely changed. This often happens -- and there are laws at work behind these happenings. So when the memory of her past life came back to this lady professor, she was very hurt. She felt hurt because her ego was shattered. What she learned about her past life shook her, and now she wanted to forget it. I had warned her in the first place not to recall her past life without sufficient preparation. Since you have asked, I shall tell you a few basic things so that you can understand the meaning of jati-smaran. But they wont help you to experiment with it. Those who wish to experiment will have to look into it separately. The first thing is that if the purpose of jati-smaran is simply to know ones past life, then one needs to turn ones mind away from the future. Our mind is future-oriented, not past-oriented. Ordinarily, our mind is centered in the future; it moves toward the future. The stream of our thoughts is future-oriented, and it is in lifes interests that the mind be future-oriented, not past-oriented. Why be concerned with the past? It is gone, it is finished -- so we are interested in that which is about to come. Thats why we keep asking astrologers what is in store for us in the future. We are interested in finding out what is going to happen in the future. One who wants to remember the past has to give up, absolutely, any interest in the future. Because once the flashlight of the mind is focused on the future; once the stream of thoughts has begun to move towards the future, then it cannot be turned back towards the past. So the first thing one needs to do is to break oneself completely away from the future for a few months, for a certain specific period of time. One should decide that he will not think of the future for the next six months. If a thought of the future does occur, he will simply salute it and let it go; he will not become identified with and carried away by any feeling of future. So the first thing is that, for six months, he will allow that there is no future and will flow towards the past. And so, as soon as future is dropped, the current of thoughts turns towards the past. First you will have to go back in this life; it is not possible to return to a past life all at once. And there are techniques for going back in this life. For example, as I said earlier, you dont remember now what you did on January 1, 1950. There is a technique to find out. If you go into the meditation which I have suggested, after ten minutes -- when the meditation has gone deeper, the body is relaxed, the breathing is relaxed, the mind has become quiet -- then let only one thing remain in your mind: "What took place on January 1, 1950?" Let your entire mind focus on it. If that remains the only note echoing in your mind, in a few days you will all of a sudden find a curtain is raised: the first of January appears and you begin to relive each and every event of that day from dawn to dusk. And you will see the first of January in far more detail than you may have seen it, in actuality, on that very day -- because on that day, you may not have been this aware. So, first, you will need to experiment by regressing in this life. It is very easy to regress to the age of five; it becomes very difficult to go beyond that age. And so, ordinarily, we cannot recall what happened before the age of five; that is the farthest back we can go. A few people might remember up to the third year, but beyond that it becomes extremely difficult -- as if a barrier comes across the entrance and everything becomes blocked. A person who becomes capable of recalling will be able to fully awaken the memory of any day up to the age of five. The memory starts to be completely revived. Then one should test it. For example, note down the events of today on a piece of paper and lock it away. Two years later recall this day: open the note and compare your memory with it. You will be amazed to find that you have been able to recall more than what was noted on the paper. The events are certain to return to your memory. Buddha has called this alaya-vigyan. There exists a corner in our minds which Buddha has named alaya-vigyan. Alaya-vigyan means the storehouse of consciousness. As we store all our junk in the basement of a house, similarly, there is a storehouse of consciousness that collects memories. Birth after birth, everything is stored in it. Nothing is ever removed from there, because a man never knows when he might need those things. The physical body changes, but, in our ongoing existence, that storehouse continues, remains with us. One never knows when it might be needed. And whatsoever we have done in our lives, whatsoever we have experienced, known, lived -- everything is stored there. One who can remember to the age of five can go beyond that age -- it is not very difficult. The nature of the experiment will be the same. Beyond the age of five there is yet another door which will lead you to the point of your birth, to when you appeared on earth. Then one comes across another difficulty, because the memories of ones stay in the mothers womb never disappear either. One can penetrate these memories too, reaching to the point of conception, to the moment when the genes of the mother and father unite and the soul enters. A man can enter into his past lives only after having reached this point; he cannot move into them directly. One has to undertake this much of the return journey, only then is it possible to move into ones past life as well. After having entered the past life, the first memory to come up will be of the last event that took place in that life. Remember, however, that this will cause some difficulty and will make little sense. It is as if we run a film from the end or read a novel backwards -- we feel lost. And so, entering into ones past life for the first time will be quite confusing because the sequence of events will be in the reverse order. As you go back into your past life, you will come across death first, then old age, youth, childhood, and then birth. It will be in reverse order, and in that order it will be very difficult to figure out what is what. So when the memory surfaces for the first time, you feel tremendously restless and troubled, because it is difficult to make sense; it is as if you are looking at a film or reading a novel from the end. Perhaps you will only make heads or tails of an event after rearranging the order several times. So the greatest effort involved in going back to the memories of ones past life is seeing, in reverse order, events which ordinarily take place in the right order. But, after all, what is the right or reverse order? It is just a question of how we entered the world and how we departed from it. We sow a seed in the beginning, and the flower appears in the end. However, if one were to take a reverse look at this phenomenon, the flower would come first, followed in sequence by the bud, the plant, the leaves, the saplings and in the end the seed. Since we have no previous knowledge of this reverse order, it takes a lot of time to rearrange memories coherently and to figure out the nature of events clearly. The strangest thing is that death will come first, followed by old age, illness, and then youth; things will occur in the reverse order. Or, if you were married and then divorced, while going down memory lane the divorce will come first, followed by the love and then the marriage. It will be extremely difficult to follow events in this regressive fashion, because normally we understand things in a one-dimensional way. Our minds are one-dimensional. To look at things in opposite order is very difficult -- we are not used to such an experience; we are accustomed to moving in a linear direction. With effort, however, one can understand the events of a past life by following, in sequence, the reverse order. Surely, it will be an incredible experience. Going through memories in this reverse order will be a very amazing experience, because seeing the divorce first and then the love and then the marriage, will make it instantly clear that the divorce was inevitable -- the divorce was inherent in the kind of love that happened; the divorce was the only ultimate possible outcome of the kind of marriage that took place. But at the time of that past life marriage we hadnt the faintest idea it would eventually end in divorce. And indeed, the divorce was the result of that marriage. If we could see this whole thing in its entirety, then falling in love today would become a totally different thing -- because now we could see the divorce in it beforehand, now we could see the enmity around the corner even before making the friendship. The memory of the past life will completely turn this life upside-down, because now you wont be able to live the way you lived in your past life. In your previous life you felt -- and the same feeling exists even now -- that success and great happiness were to be found by making a fortune. What you will see first in your previous life is your state of unhappiness before seeing how you made the fortune. This will clearly show that instead of being a source of happiness, making the fortune led, in fact, to unhappiness -- and friendship led to enmity, what was thought to be love turned into hatred, and what was considered a union resulted in separation. Then, for the first time, you will see things in their right perspective, with their total import. And this implication will change your life, will change the way you are living now completely -- it will be an entirely different situation. I have heard that a man went to a monk and said, "I would be much obliged if you would accept me as your disciple. " The monk refused. The man asked why he would not make him his disciple. The monk replied, "In my previous birth I had disciples who later turned into enemies. I have seen the whole thing and now I know that to make disciples means to make enemies, to make friends means to sow the seeds of enmity. Now I dont want to make any enemies, so I dont make any friends. I have known that to be alone is enough. Drawing someone close to you is, in a way, pushing the person away from you. " Buddha has said that the meeting with the beloved brings joy and the parting of the unbeloved also brings joy, that the parting of the beloved brings sorrow and the meeting with the unbeloved brings sorrow as well. This is how it was perceived; this is how it was understood. However, later we come to understand that the one we feel is our beloved can become the unbeloved, and the one we considered the unbeloved can become a beloved. And so, with the recollection of past memories, the existing situations will change radically; they will be seen in an entirely different perspective. Such recollections are possible, though neither necessary nor inevitable, and sometimes, in meditation, these memories may strike unexpectedly as well. If the memories of past lives ever do come all of a sudden -- without being involved in any experiment, but simply keeping on with ones meditation -- dont take much interest in them. Just look at them; be a witness to them -- because ordinarily the mind is incapable of bearing such vast turbulence all at once. Attempting to cope with it, there is a distinct possibility of going mad. Once a girl was brought to me. She was about eleven years old. Unexpectedly, she had remembered three of her past lives. She had not experimented with anything; but often, for some reason mistakes do happen all of a sudden. This was an error on the part of nature, not its grace upon her; in some way nature had erred in her case. It is the same as if someone had three eyes, or four arms -- this is an error. Four arms would be much weaker than two arms; four arms couldnt work as effectively as two arms could -- four arms would make the body weaker, not stronger. So the girl, eleven years old, remembered three past lives, and many inquiries were made into this case. In her previous life she had lived about eighty miles from my present residence, and in that life she died at the age of sixty. The people she lived with then are now the residents of my hometown, and she could recognize all of them. Even in a crowd of thousands, she could recognize her past relatives -- her own brother, her daughters, and her grandchildren -- from the daughters, from the sons-in-law. She could recognize her distant relatives and tell many things about them even they had forgotten. Her elder brother is still alive. On his head there is a scar from a small injury. I asked the girl if she knew anything about that scar. The girl laughed and said, "Even my brother doesnt know about it. Let him tell you how and when he got that injury. " The brother could not recall when the injury occurred; he had no idea at all, he said. The girl said, "On the day of his wedding, my brother fell while he was mounting the marriage horse. He was ten years old then. " The elderly people in the town supported her story, admitting that the brother had, indeed, fallen from the horse. And the man himself had no recollection of this event. Then, as well, the girl displayed a treasure she had buried in the house she had lived in during her previous life. In her last birth she died at the age of sixty, and previous to that birth she had been born in a village somewhere in Assam. Then she had died at the age of seven. She could not give the village name, nor her address, but she could speak as much of the Assamese language as a seven-year-old child could. Also, she could dance and sing like a seven-year-old girl could. Many inquiries were made, but her family from that life could not be traced. The girl has a past-life experience of sixty-seven years plus eleven years of this life. You can see in her eyes the resemblance to a seventy-five to seventy-eight-year-old woman, although she is actually eleven years old. She cannot play with children of her own age because she feels too old. Within her she carries the memory of seventy-eight years; she sees herself as a seventy-eight-year-old woman. She cannot go to school because, although she is eleven, she can easily look upon her teacher as her son. So even though her body is eleven years old, her mind and personality are those of a seventy-eight-year-old woman. She cannot play and frolic like a child; she is only interested in the kinds of serious things old women talk about. She is in agony; she is filled with tension. Her body and mind are not in harmony. She is in a very sad and painful state. I advised her parents to bring the girl to me, and to let me help her forget the memories of her past lives. Just as there is a method to revive memories, there is also a way to forget them. But her parents were enjoying the whole affair! Crowds of people came to see the girl; they began to worship her. The parents were not interested in having her forget the past. I warned them the girl would go mad, but they turned a deaf ear. Today she is on the verge of insanity, because she cannot bear the weight of so many memories. Another problem is, how to get her married? She finds it difficult to conceive of marriage when, in fact, she feels like an old woman of seventy-eight. There is no harmony of any kind within her; her body is young but the mind i