Chapter 2
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Remember, memories are never erased; a memory either remains latent or it arises.
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.
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.
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.
She cannot go to school because, although she is eleven, she can easily look upon her teacher as her son.
" It is difficult to maintain this distance when we are happy because in happiness we like to be close to it.
The events are certain to return to your memory.
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.
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.
Within her she carries the memory of seventy-eight years; she sees herself as a seventy-eight-year-old woman.
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.
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But whatsoever we do with death, it consequently affects our birth as well.
First take a deep breath, then open your eyes slowly.
So the girl, eleven years old, remembered three past lives, and many inquiries were made into this case.
Ram is hungry -- I am not hungry.
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.
I wont discuss the whole thing because its not advisable for everyone to experiment with this idea.
We have fallen in love a thousand times, and time and time again it has ultimately proven to be meaningless.
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Nevertheless, we are standing outside the house at this point.
Meditation is an experiment in how one attains to a gradual, voluntary death.
If, however, one wants to turn it towards the divine, then meditation has to be applied like a lamp.
Now I dont want to make any enemies, so I dont make any friends.
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What you will see first in your previous life is your state of unhappiness before seeing how you made the fortune.
Then it is also possible that a man may eat and yet remain in the state of fasting.
Once you give up your hold on the body, it automatically drops.
There is layer upon layer of all the states we have been through in the past.
" 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.
There are three parts to this experiment.
The physicians insisted that he must have complete rest, otherwise it would cause him great harm -- but to no avail.
Even while worshipping God, his ears were tuned to the sounds which came from her house.
ANOTHER FRIEND HAS ASKED: MY FRIEND, WHO IS A YOGI, CLAIMS HE WAS A SPARROW IN HIS PAST LIFE.
When he moves the light to the right, the right side becomes alive again, but the left side remains hidden in the dark.
Appearances change every day -- they have always changed -- only the witness, the observer is the same as before, changeless.
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.
The body is also left, left far behind, far away -- we are just watching it.
Then nature will allow us to stay awake in death too.
" But it is not so easy to stop the tide of memory once it has broken loose.
Let us start to move within from this very day onward; only then can we be prepared for what follows next.
" When people asked, "Who are you talking about, which Ram?" he would point to himself.
In a moment a dream can cover a span of many years, and after waking up you will find it difficult to figure out how so many years were covered in a dream that lasted just a few moments! Time actually moves very fast in a dream; many years can be spanned in one moment.
Then she had died at the age of seven.
What we need to be aware of, though, is not to continue to be a bird or a beast in this life.
Watch your body being cremated with perfect attention, so that next time you do not get attached to the physical body.
Why be concerned with the past? It is gone, it is finished -- so we are interested in that which is about to come.
One never knows when it might be needed.
You cant awaken at the time of death.
" He would not say, "I have a headache," he would say, "Ram has a severe headache.
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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.
Let everything go as if you are dead and the body on the outside is dead.
She was about eleven years old.
Then the very first day of his new life is not a day of ignorance but of full knowledge.
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.
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.
She said, "Somehow this has got to stop.
This kind of fasting is meaningless.
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.
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It could not have been blank; as it passed, it was filled with activity.
And there are techniques for going back in this life.
Taking his last step, he said, "Thats it; this is my last step.
He asked, "What language is this?" -- because Ram used to speak in the third person.
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Attempting to cope with it, there is a distinct possibility of going mad.
I am wondering who I should cry for? Should I cry for the twelve sons I had a moment ago, or should I cry for this son I have just lost? The thing thats bothering me is, who has died? And the strange thing is that when I was with those twelve sons, I had no knowledge of this son.
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.
Body, breathing and thought -- all these have to be slowly let go of.
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It is possible that somebody may fall, so keep a little distance between yourselves.
As we store all our junk in the basement of a house, similarly, there is a storehouse of consciousness that collects memories.
The night he died, Ouspensky kept walking back and forth in his room.
Meditation can be focused in that direction as well.
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He fell down walking; that is, he fell only when his death occurred.
Others will, of course, see your body being cremated, but if you also see it, you will lose all your attachment for it.
While in misery, we obviously want to feel separate, away from it.
Death is the biggest surgical operation there is.
He was a great mathematician from Russia.
However, the remaining objects are lost to view.
It will be in reverse order, and in that order it will be very difficult to figure out what is what.
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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.
As you go back into your past life, you will come across death first, then old age, youth, childhood, and then birth.
Nature has kindly seen to it that we become fully unconscious at the occurrence of this phenomenon.
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.
What lies ahead of us are merely our potentialities -- they are not layers.
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.
let go.
The soul of the prostitute was to be taken to heaven, and that of the holy man, however, to hell.
It is inevitable -- it is sure to come; it is already on its way.
The fundamental purpose of fasting is to experience that, "Hunger is there, but it is far away from me.
Remember, the experiment of inviting misery is of great significance, because everyone wants to invite happiness but no one wants to invite misery.
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.
It is approaching closer and closer every moment.
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You will have to start experimenting with minor kinds of miseries.
His friends have written that those who were fit and hearty would get tired, but not Ouspensky.
The memory starts to be completely revived.
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.
thoughts are calming down too.
And so, as soon as future is dropped, the current of thoughts turns towards the past.
So, first, you will need to experiment by regressing in this life.
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They take birth after looking into all of this.
The happiness we beckon to never comes, while the happiness we never ask for walks right in.
Instantly, the gentleman in you gives way and you find yourself expressing the same animal in you that you must have been in some past life.
Dont do anything with a sudden movement -- neither rising nor opening your eyes.
We can never fully identify ourselves with anything we invite upon ourselves.
I take it that you have totally relaxed your body, that you have given up your hold over it.
If we could recall this, perhaps our ambition would lose its steam, and then we would not remain the same people we are now.
Whatever is happening, let it happen.
Let go totally.
Now only that which always survives will survive.
They always come to beg in the morning.
And move within, move totally within.
Other pains of a similar type can also be created voluntarily, but creating such voluntary pain is a very deep experiment.
Everything else is dead, erased.
So in Bardo he is told, "Look, dont miss this opportunity.
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When death happens in full consciousness, the soul of the person takes its next birth in full consciousness.
We often hear the word jeevan-mukta, although we may not know what the word means.
If someones head lies in your lap for a while, let it be so; dont be bothered by it.
Hence, in life it often happens that a virtuous person becomes a sinner, and a sinner becomes virtuous.
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.
Everything else around you has disappeared.
She paid no heed to my advice and went into the experiment.
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.
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?"
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.
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.
One should decide that he will not think of the future for the next six months.
A peace, joy and radiance were visible which shine through when one is standing on the threshold of the world beyond.
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But this a man can know only if he has died in awareness; a man dying in an unconscious state cannot know this.
If you observe carefully, you will find that in a twenty-four-hour period, only once in a while, at certain moments, are we truly human beings.
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In suffering, it is possible we may succeed in deceiving ourselves because one would like to believe that "I am not pain.
Whosoever has remembered his past lives, for 九九藏书网him the whole affair has suddenly turned into a dream, an illusion.
It is an experiment in how one moves within and then leaves the body.
The people she lived with then are now the residents of my hometown, and she could recognize all of them.
Hence, if you died before in an unconscious state, you will have to be born again in an unconscious state.
A man can enter into his past lives only after having reached this point; he cannot move into them directly.
The girl has a past-life experience of sixty-seven years plus eleven years of this life.
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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.
If we could recall this, we might not carry, any longer, the same craze for money within us as we did before.
There is no going back in this world; there is no chance.
A lamp merely burns and its light spreads all around.
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.
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.
Then the question will arise: "Is what I am seeing now just as true as what I saw before? .
He does not expect any charity in the evening because he knows what the man has gone through the whole day -- the office, the marketplace, the riots and protests, the newspapers and the politicians -- all must have created a mess for him.
If we could only recall what we did in our past lives, we might not fall into the same ditches again.
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.
Feel it.
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.
Keep looking inside.
As soon as a person dies he enters into a new world, one we know nothing about.
Hence, I say, remembering past lives is useful, but only after you have gone deeper into meditation.
Ordinarily, we pass through it in an unconscious state, and so we dont notice it.
It was dangerous -- the danger was that the patient might scream, move, jump or fall because of the unbearable pain; anything might happen.
And whatsoever we have done in our lives, whatsoever we have experienced, known, lived -- everything is stored there.
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His whole attention always remained focused on her place.
It is a way to remember our previous existences.
Thats why we keep asking astrologers what is in store for us in the future.
Then, for the first time, you will see things in their right perspective, with their total import.
You will have to experiment on how to remain aware in misery as well as in happiness.
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The body is hungry, I am not.
You need a certain capacity to choose.
An awakened one chooses a womb for himself; that is his choice.
But one who goes through it in a conscious state gets into great difficulty.
Two years later recall this day: open the note and compare your memory with it.
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There is a reason why the body is brought for cremation so soon.
We can utilize the moments which are available before death for our awakening.
The breathing has calmed down.
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And indeed, the divorce was the result of that marriage.
Ouspensky called all his close friends near him but did not say anything to them.
let it be lifeless, as if it is dead.
Already much misery is available -- one should start experimenting with it.
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Upvasa is a psychological awareness of the separation of the self and the physical state of hunger.
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.
No sooner does the pendulum reach the left than it moves back to the right.
It is in our own interest that we become unconscious; nature does not allow us to remember passing through death.
New phenomena are not so easy to follow right away.
He was nowhere at all; there was no trace of him, or of you.
Keep looking inside, keep looking inside with awareness -- everything has become silent.
So the first thing is that, for six months, he will allow that there is no future and will flow towards the past.
But they wont help you to experiment with it.
And this is possible only if one has attained to full consciousness in the dying moment of ones previous life.
One who can remember to the age of five can go beyond that age -- it is not very difficult.
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The nature of the experiment will be the same.
He would not say, "I am hungry," he would say, "Ram is hungry.
The physicians advised him to stay in bed, but in spite of this, he made such an incredible effort it is beyond imagination.
Individuals like Mahavira or Buddha are not born anywhere and everywhere.
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.
So, it will be a great mistake if someone keeps waiting until the moment of death to awaken.
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.
Question 1
Then the meaning of fasting becomes very profound; then it does not mean merely remaining hungry.
He said, "I want to die walking, lest I might die sitting and become unconscious, or I might die sleeping and become unconscious.
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But her parents were enjoying the whole affair! Crowds of people came to see the girl; they began to worship her.
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.
Thus a misery can be invited in order to experience the disassociation of consciousness from the physical plane.
If a man can have one side of a coin in his hand, the other side will be in his hand automatically.
Mountains are alive as well; however, they contain almost no consciousness.
only consciousness is left within.
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Once we must have been at such a point of inertness where it is difficult to locate any sign of consciousness.
Everything is dead.
Also, she could dance and sing like a seven-year-old girl could.
Jati-smaran means: a method of recalling past lives.
As life evolves, consciousness keeps on growing and inertness keeps on decreasing.
The breath is slowing down, the breath is calming down.
God is one hundred percent consciousness.
lower and lower.
But she remained persistent.
Hence there is quite a deep relationship between sinners and saints.
With this opportunity an effort can be made towards awakening.
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.
When the flood of her past lifes memory finally burst upon her, she came running to me around two oclock in the morning.
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The body is relaxing, the body has relaxed, the body has completely relaxed.
When a man grows into being a witness, past lives appear to be no more than dreams to him.
And so, ordinarily, we cannot recall what happened before the age of five; that is the farthest back we can go.
Along with this we will also experience that a}l happenings, all events are quite unreal -- they are never identical, but they are transient.
But before moving into the experiment it is essential they go through deep meditation so their minds can become so silent and strong that when the flood of memories breaks upon them, they can accept it as a witnessing.
For ten minutes keep looking within.
They never come in the evening, because by evening the possibility of someone remaining a human being is virtually nonexistent.
The king said, "No, I am not frightened, I am confused.
Also, this experiment can often put you in danger.
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.
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.
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.
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Let go.
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There is a technique to find out.
The girl laughed and said, "Even my brother doesnt know about it.
When the body becomes loose, it may fall forwards or backwards; one never knows.
Be lost in emptiness for ten minutes.
It is possible that in the course of his evolution a man may have once been an animal, but he cannot be born as an animal again.
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When one succeeds in recalling past lives and they begin to appear like dreams, immediately ones present life begins to look like a dream too.
Keep watching, remain a witness.
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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.
What was the problem?
If such an awakening becomes possible then the choice can definitely be made.
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.
You must have observed beggars.
Everything must have aggravated and activated the animal layers inside him.
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.
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.
Only when appearances turn out to be unreal does one become aware of the witness.
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Hence the doctors were not ready.
It is for our own good; we might not be able to bear that much pain.
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As we leave this world the incorporeal world begins -- a world we have never experienced.
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.
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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.
Meditation is that preparation.
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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.
a burning lamp of consciousness -- the rest is all dead.
It is the same as if someone had three eyes, or four arms -- this is an error.
" So for three months he made an exemplary effort to go through all kinds of pain.
As he was dreaming all this.
Only the body stays hungry and I know it.
Our state of being now contains all we have ever been before.
The links with the body have all been broken and yet, inside, I still exist.
Then, as well, the girl displayed a treasure she had buried in the house she had lived in during her previous life.
There is nothing difficult, bothersome or dangerous about it.
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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.
And he saw himself as extremely happy.
You can be sure of it only as long as you have a hold over it.
Nothing can be done after death; whatsoever is to be done must be done before death.
the mind has become totally empty.
She had not experimented with anything; but often, for some reason mistakes do happen all of a sudden.
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" The brother could not recall when the injury occurred; he had no idea at all, he said.
It is very difficult to shut the door once it crashes down -- the door does not simply open, it breaks open.
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Now I will begin my suggestions that the body is becoming loose, that we are becoming silent.
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The destination of the canal is assured.
She felt hurt because her ego was shahttp://www•99lib•netttered.
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Around 1915, the ruler of Kashi had an abdominal operation.
A man named P.
You have let the body go, you have let the breathing go, now let thoughts go as well.
The distinction between abstaining from food and fasting, upvasa, is this: fasting means residing closer and closer.
Thats why matter can ultimately become God.
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.
His mind continues to fantasize about the food he will eat the next day and plans for it.
Even the slightest identification with the body can be dangerous.
Then we can live like a jeevan-mukta.
One will have to continue this sadhana even with happiness which has come on its own.
For example, you are walking along the road like a gentleman and some fellow comes and punches you, swears at you.
You ought to be able to say, "I am not holding back anything.
The nightclubs cater to the animal in man.
" So by inducing hunger voluntarily, one is trying to know, from within, if hunger is there.
Their interests and attitudes, so totally opposite each others, so totally different from each others, had completely changed.
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.
One should say that actually the house chooses the poor man; a poor house chooses a poor man.
Subsequently, the operation was performed.
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By remaining hungry he is trying to find out what effect hunger has on his consciousness.
The holy man was never as lost in the incense smoke, in the shining lamps, in the sounds of worship as the prostitute was.
In fact, many people who ordinarily are incapable of giving vent to their feelings are moved to tears in a movie.
The guest who comes to your home does not belong there -- he is a guest.
Nature, as well, will figure that if the man can stay conscious in pain, he can also remain conscious in death.
This is how it was perceived; this is how it was understood.
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See that you are not holding anything back.
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There is no other phenomenon more valuable than this, because what is revealed at the time of death can never be known otherwise.
He chooses his parents just as a rich man chooses his house.
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.
In fact it has no connection with life on earth whatsoever.
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.
If we dig inside a little, we can reach to the inner layers of our being -- we can even reach the state when we were a rock; that too constitutes a layer inside.
In order to uncover the memories of past lives, we shall have to enter the house.
I want to keep on doing something until the very end, otherwise death may catch me unawares.
We will drop everything else which can die.
Similarly, today will become blank tomorrow as well.
For about two or three years, in respect to meditation, a lady professor stayed in touch with me.
However, just as when someone takes a jump -- for a second he goes off the ground and into the air, but the very next moment he is back on the ground -- at times we jump out of our animal state and become human beings, but then we revert to the same state again.
Once you remember your past lives, you will find it difficult to figure out whether what you are seeing in this life is true or not.
Life is here, death has not arrived yet.
Even when it comes by chance, it remains outside our door.
Deep meditation is required to be in such awareness.
He would not sleep at night; he traveled, walked, ran, was always on the move.
Go deep into meditation so you may attain the ability to see life as a dream.
I warned them the girl would go mad, but they turned a deaf ear.
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.
With birth we cannot do anything directly; whatsoever we can do is possible only in relation to death.
Jeevan-mukta means: one who is born in an awakened state.
Draw all the energy from your body; take it inside.
Now slowly take a few breaths.
Since you have asked, I shall tell you a few basic things so that you can understand the meaning of jati-smaran.
The pilgrim starts from one moment and enters into the next one.
The man asked why he would not make him his disciple.
Surely, it will be an incredible experience.
This is the reason why mornings are the best for prayer, why the evening is ill-suited for it.
But the physicians were reluctant; they believed it was dangerous to have someone go through such pain in a conscious state.
Meditation will surely bring you to God.
It is a specific application of meditation.
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.
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Now close your eyes.
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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.
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He is the only person in this century who has done such extensive experiments in relation to death.
Because this will run its course too and fade away like all other previous dreams.
In every life we repeat almost the same mistakes we have repeated in our past lives.
This is an accident and its pain will be overwhelming.
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 first is, relaxation of the body; second, relaxation of breathing; third, relaxation of thought.
If anyone has fallen, take a deep breath first and then get up slowly.
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.
After the film has ended, it takes us a few moments to come back to our reality, to acknowledge that what we saw in the theater was merely an illusion.
Feel the body becoming loose.
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.
In order to follow what is being said, a very silent and empty mind is needed.
It is just as when a child passes first grade he moves on to the second grade -- but if he fails he remains in the first grade.
That world can be scary and frightening to us because it is neither like nor unlike any of our experiences.
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.
You are dead.
They have something we dont have, which, painstakingly, they continue to bring to us.
Dont run or move away in haste.
If a person prepares himself fully, then death becomes a wonderful experience.
Meditation is a technique to that effect.
The mosque gives the call to prayer in the morning, and the temple rings its bells in the morning.
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.
On the one occasion when he is conscious, he moves away from watching his burning body; he escapes from the cremation ground.
It is possible that the reason why we become unconscious is because the pain of death is so unbearable.
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Death and birth are two sides of the same phenomenon.
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But today it feels like a blank.
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Nothing, in fact, is more painful than feeling that we are separate from our happiness.
Drawing someone close to you is, in a way, pushing the person away from you.
I have heard.
A poor man cannot have a house of his choice.
Question 2
Then he is not tormented by the memories; now they mean nothing more than dreams.
As soon as an opportunity arises, we dont lose much time in reverting to the animal level once again.
Hence one will have to make preparations towards raising ones consciousness.
She cannot play with children of her own age because she feels too old.
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We can also behave like animals -- in fact, we do.
Man moves in circles like an ox on a water-wheel.
Then one comes across another difficulty, because the memories of ones stay in the mothers womb never disappear either.
rise very softly.
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And the ruler remained fully conscious throughout the operation.
Relax your body.
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.
For example, a person enters a dark room and moves around with a flashlight.
The very knowledge that it is an invited thing creates the distance.
Now misery can be asked to come and stay.
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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 in order for a man to see his body burning in Bardo, he is prompted, "Take a good look at your burning body.
The world we live in is a world of physical bodies.
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Dont rush if you are unable to rise, dont rush if you find it difficult to open your eyes.
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.
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It will be extremely difficult to follow events in this regressive fashion, because normally we understand things in a one-dimensional way.
In such cases one is merely pushed into life and then whatever happens, happens -- the person has no role to play in it.
Her body and mind are not in harmony.
Our morning session of meditation is now over.
Once a girl was brought to me.
There exists a corner in our minds which Buddha has named alaya-vigyan.
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But it is not necessary to go in that direction; however, those who still wish to pursue it, can experiment.
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I have told you a few things about remembering your past lives, but you will have to go into meditation for this.
Everything has become silent, as if everything outside is dead.
Meditation is like a big river -- it will reach to the ocean; it is sure to reach.
A lamp has no interest in lighting up one direction or the other; whatsoever falls within the radius of light is lit up.
You can also break open the passage with an experiment.
After having entered the past life, the first memory to come up will be of the last event that took place in that life.
It often happens that people who were sinners in past lives become saints in this life.
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Closer to what? It means closer to the self, residing closer to the self and further away from the body.
But at the time of that past life marriage we hadnt the faintest idea it would eventually end in divorce.
There cannot be the same kind of joy in a life which is given to you because then it becomes servitude.
When the president of America paid him a visit, he was puzzled too.
We may have been an animal, a bird, a little sparrow.
Lately, I have often felt that those friends who are practicing meditation can be taken into the Bardo experiment in some form or other.
Like small tributaries these can be directed into canals of meditation.
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.
I am sinking, but I shall keep walking until I have taken the last step.
Prostitutes are unable to invite anyone in the morning, they invite their customers only at night.
the mind has become silent and empty.
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.
We generally dream of those things which we have not fulfilled in life, and so the king, sitting by his only son, his dying son, dreamed that he had twelve strong and handsome sons.
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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.
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.
Let go totally, dont keep anything.
We will have to experiment slowly with small miseries to see how we can be aware while going through them.
It barely touches the right when it swings back to the left.
One has to undertake this much of the return journey, only then is it possible to move into ones past life as well.
Actually, 99lib•neta man wants to drown himself completely in happiness and forget that he is separate from it.
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.
An awakened one exercises his choice in selecting the womb.
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Let go completely, just keep watching inside and let the rest go.
Thats why nature has planned it so we go on forgetting the past.
It is very easy to regress to the age of five; it becomes very difficult to go beyond that age.
I have let myself go completely.
Please understand this carefully.
Today she is on the verge of insanity, because she cannot bear the weight of so many memories.
Ten years from now there will be no trace left of today.
Let whatever has to happen, happen -- you relax.
Remember, the darker the night, the brighter the stars.
Those who have called this world maya have not done so just to propound a doctrine of philosophy.
let go totally.
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He saw himself as the emperor of a large kingdom, as the ruler of the whole earth, with large and beautiful palaces.
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Very few people on this earth have died walking like this.
Nothing is ever removed from there, because a man never knows when he might need those things.
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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.
This is basically the secret of all asceticism: it is an experiment to undergo voluntary pain.
The pendulum of our minds keeps moving in the opposite direction.
Ouspensky replied, "I want to experience all kinds of pain, lest the pain of death be so great that I might become unconscious.
It is indeed possible for someone to have previously been an animal or a bird; he must have been.
And if we could only remember what we did throughout our previous lives, we could no longer remain the same as we are now.
The king could not sleep for eight nights, but then, around four oclock one morning, sleep overtook him and he began to dream.
First you will have to go back in this life; it is not possible to return to a past life all at once.
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.
One who has taken birth in awareness, we have called him avatara, tirthankara, Buddha, Jesus, Krishna.
On his head there is a scar from a small injury.
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.
So when the memory of her past life came back to this lady professor, she was very hurt.
Keep watching this death.
" The monk refused.
Now that I am out of the dream, this palace is here, you are here, my son is here -- but those palaces and those sons have disappeared.
He is so blissful that now there is no difficulty for him to invite suffering.
It is a very valuable experiment, carried out only at the time of death.
let it go completely.
You will realize you have seen the same stuff many times before and none of it has endured forever -- everything is lost.
But the latent memory appears to be erased.
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Once you loosen your grip from within, who will hold the body? -- it is bound to fall.
It is as if we run a film from the end or read a novel backwards -- we feel lost.
Similarly, if he fails in the second grade we can leave him there, but in no way can we bring him back to the first grade.
Similarly, when we invite suffering as our guest, it is already something separate from us.
Since we do not remember our past lives, we keep moving in almost the same circle.
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the breathing has slowed down.
She was very insistent on experimenting with jati-smaran, on learning about her past life.
The physicians were aghast; they said he needed complete rest.
However, seeing no other alternative, the physicians first asked him, as an experiment, to go into meditation.
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.
If a man, standing outside the house, wants to enter the cellars, he will first have to step inside the house, because the way to the cellar is from inside the house.
They feel greatly relieved, because otherwise they would have had to find some other pretext for releasing their feelings.
Feel as if everything is dead, as if all is dead -- only a burning lamp is left inside; the rest is all dead.
I asked the girl if she knew anything about that scar.
The strangest thing is that death will come first, followed by old age, illness, and then youth; things will occur in the reverse order.
And we all know this only too well.
Worriedly, the queen asked, "Why do you look so frightened? Why are there no tears in your eyes? Why dont you say something?"
And dont be upset if someone falls on you; let it be so.
Our past lives are like cellars.
Feel it.
If we could recall this, our craze for falling in love with others and for having others fall in love with us would disappear.
And if you remain preoccupied with preventing it from falling, you will stay where you are -- you wont be able to move into meditation.
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Move inside, enter within.
She cannot play and frolic like a child; she is only interested in the kinds of serious things old women talk about.
He was ten years old then.
We may either remain in one species for a very long time or move forward into the next species, but we cannot go back to a species lower than where we are.
Let go.
A holy man and a prostitute once lived opposite each other.
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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.
For example, as I said earlier, you dont remember now what you did on January 1, 1950.
Her elder brother is still alive.
One who dies in an awakened state is born in an awakened state and then he lives his life in a liberated state.
Once you see something burning to ashes, your attachment for it disappears.
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.
Question 3
If death occurs in a conscious state, then birth inevitably takes place in a conscious state.
But this was an accident.
By evening the man is tired; he has turned into a beast.
Let go completely.
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But at that moment we become unconscious.
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.
People in Tibet do a little experiment called bardo.
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 prostitute always longed for the life of the holy man, and the holy man always craved for the pleasures of the prostitute.
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.
Remember, it can be done only in respect to death, if anything; nothing can be done with respect to birth.
You will be amazed to find that you have been able to recall more than what was noted on the paper.
Now I am about to fall.
They contain ninety-nine percent inertness and one percent consciousness.
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.
Time runs faster in a dream; in a dream timing is totally different from our day-to-day time.
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.
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.
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Closer to what? It means coming closer to the self by creating a distance from the body.
For example, a man is on a fast.
Move a little back or come a little forward, but just see to it that you dont sit too close to each other; otherwise the whole time you will be busy saving yourself from falling over somebody.
Those who wish to experiment will have to look into it separately.
No one has ever performed such a phenomenal operation, nor can it ever be done.
Thoughts are becoming silent.
Jati-smaran is one such auxiliary method of meditation.
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.
Watch your body being cremated; just watch it once and for all.
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.
Such recollections are possible, though neither necessary nor inevitable, and sometimes, in meditation, these memories may strike unexpectedly as well.
Then they made a cut in his hand -- there was not even a tremor.
There is no way, however, to pull him below first grade.
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.
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There are, however, other intermediary applications of meditation also.
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.
Many inquiries were made, but her family from that life could not be traced.
There are only two ways -- either we move ahead or stay where we are; we cannot go back.
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.
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It is a form of meditation.
Moment after moment, the moments keep disappearing, but the pilgrim continues moving on.
This was the first such operation ever performed in the world without the use of anesthesia.
Move within just as a person moves inside his house.
This was an error on the part of nature, not its grace upon her; in some way nature had erred in her case.
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Keep watching your breath.
And remember, as long as appearances seem real, your attention will not focus on the onlooker, on the witness.
The body is relaxed, the body is loose.
At the very moment of death, which could otherwise become the moment to know our being, we become unconscious.
The joy of living a life of ones own choice is altogether different, because freedom begins with having a life of ones own choice.
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.
One who wants to know the truth of life directly will develop his meditation like a lamp -- that will be his sole purpose.
Then it is merely abstaining from food.
Death has to be accepted as if it has already arrived, as if all else has died and we are sinking deeper and deeper within.
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But suddenly the day of January 1, 1950 feels like a total blank.
Which is true? Is this true, or was that true? I cannot figure it out.
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The lamp has no focus of its own; it is unfocused.
They would not be able to hear what is being said at the moment of death, or follow what is being told to them.
Birth after birth, everything is stored in it.
Once a kings only son lay on his deathbed.
Only those who have been through deep meditation can be taken through this experiment -- not otherwise.
He would obviously be very perturbed and confused .
If we could regain the memories of our past lives, our present birth would also begin to look like a dream.
I simply remain a knower.
If the same movie is seen every day the illusion gradually begins to clear.
Whatsoever is to be done must be done before death, because we have lots of opportunities before death, the opportunity of a whole lifetime.
One needs a capability to buy a house.
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It is neither strange nor difficult to accept that a man may have been an animal in his past life.
So I will mention two or three clues which, of course, wont really enabwww.99lib.netle you to experiment with remembering past lives, but will give you just an idea.
Close them gently.
Let it be completely loose, as if there is no life in it.
In all the temples the bells toll in the morning; at night the doors open to the nightclubs, the casinos, the bars.
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Your breathing is still, your thoughts are still -- as if death has occurred.
When he turns the light to the left, the right side becomes dark -- but nothing disappears on the right side.
I have known that to be alone is enough.
Let go.
The mind will become even more silent.
She is in agony; she is filled with tension.
We can be gods some day, but at present were not.
Before we move into the meditation, let us understand a few things.
Three months before his death, he became very ill.
Her whole morality of this life was disturbed.
Thats why it so often happens that a sinner succeeds in attaining to God while a holy man does not.
Let me tell you of an incident so that what I am saying becomes clear to you.
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.
The wisest among them said, "He was a holy man all right, but he envied the prostitute.
Let go.
Having taken conscious birth, this becomes their final journey on earth.
When we come out of the movie, the first thing that occurs to us is how deeply we let ourselves become identified with the happenings on the screen.
Please sit at a distance from each other.
A poor man never chooses his house.
And the interesting thing is that the dream of being a thief is likely to dissolve soon, whereas the dream of being a mahatma takes a little longer to disappear because it seems so very enjoyable.
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One can save oneself from this harm, but it requires great awareness and continuous experimentation.
Watch it being reduced to ashes for certain, so that you may remember in your next birth who you are.
For eight days he was in a coma -- he couldnt be saved nor would death claim him.
as if your body is dead, as if your body is no more.
It is possible to move ahead from the previous form of birth, but it is not possible, from an advanced form of birth, to fall back.
Let go totally, disappear -- as if you are no more.
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.
The girl said, "On the day of his wedding, my brother fell while he was mounting the marriage horse.
The person merely feels that something has separated.
The breath is calming down, the breath is slowing down.
For example, you have a headache.
D.
So two experiences occur simultaneously: one, the objective world is an illusion, maya -- only the observer is real; second, what appears is false -- only the seer, only the witness of it is true.
One who carries out such experiments often brings misery upon himself, of his own free will, in order to experience it.
Take a few breaths slowly and keep looking within; remain a witness to the breathing also.
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He was not willing to take the anesthetic; he said he wished to be operated upon in his conscious state.
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Take a few breaths slowly, then gently open your eyes.
In the process of evolution one cannot fall back; retrogression is impossible.
Watch that which you have been identifying your self with all along being destroyed totally.
I dont ever want to look at that side of things.
The flash of lightning stands out like a silver strand, the darker the clouds are.
The physical body changes, but, in our ongoing existence, that storehouse continues, remains with us.
And so, with the recollection of past memories, the existing situations will change radically; they will be seen in an entirely different perspective.
One dream comes, is followed by another dream, and is followed by yet another dream.
The difference between God and matter is of quantity, not of quality.
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.
Man, tired of being a human the whole day, craves for alcohol, for noise, for gambling, for dancing, for striptease -- he wants to be among other beasts.
He always brooded over the parties at her place and the pleasures that went on there.
On the one hand the king prayed for his life, while on the other hand, aware of so much pain and suffering all around, he felt the futility of life at the same time.
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The evening is sure to descend -- but before it descends, if we have set out on the journey in the morning it is possible that in the evening we may find ourselves in the temple of the divine as well.
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.
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.
Miseries come uninvited anyway.
When people bring your body for cremation, make sure you accompany them and be present there.
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If you hold yourself back even a tiny bit, it will become a hurdle in meditation.
For example, he once said, "Last night Ram was freezing.
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If we look into our tendencies, it seems that although we are no longer animals we have not yet become human beings either; it seems we are stuck somewhere in between.
This often happens -- and there are laws at work behind these happenings.
As the energy moves within, the body will become loose.
We will have to experiment slowly.
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Once upon a time we lived there, and then we abandoned them -- now we are living somewhere else.
Then death ruins all hopes, and once again the cycle begins.
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The word upvasa does not imply going without food.
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.
With effort, however, one can understand the events of a past life by following, in sequence, the reverse order.
There is no harmony of any kind within her; her body is young but the mind is old.
This shows that he never chooses anything blindly, unconsciously.
Let go of it at once.
Ouspensky died some years ago.
The mind has become empty, the mind has become totally empty.
let everything go.
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.
It is a very difficult situation.
While walking barefoot a thorn gets into your foot.
Remember, however, that this will cause some difficulty and will make little sense.
I will share with you two or three clues as to how meditation can be channelized in that direction.
No one can stay conscious in death all of a sudden, without having had a previous experience of the kind.
They let themselves cry or laugh in the theater.
We are interested in finding out what is going to happen in the future.
In a flashlight we keep all the light and shine it in one direction.
They asked him why did he not follow the physicians advice.
Entering into the world of bodiless spirits can be an experience frightening beyond imagination.
And the man himself had no recollection of this event.
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Then one should test it.
There can be doubt regarding other things, but about death nothing whatsoever is in doubt.
Actually, death and birth are not two events, they are two ends of the same phenomenon -- just like two sides of the same coin.
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.
She is in a very sad and painful state.
A FRIEND HAS ASKED: WHAT IS THE RELATION BETWEEN MEDITATION AND JATI-SMARAN, PAST LIFE REMEMBERING?
Buddha has called this alaya-vigyan.
We are born in the same state in which we die.
Only one more birth is possible for one who has died in a conscious state.
Dont hold it back, because if you do you will keep yourself from moving inward.
Ordinarily, our mind is centered in the future; it moves toward the future.
So, just as the king was dreaming about his twelve sons and their beautiful wives, about his palaces and the great kingdom, the ill, twelve-year-old prince died.
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The envoys who had come to take them away were very puzzled.
He awoke with a shock.
Until we are prepared to undertake such an experiment, we must try to become aware of whatever suffering comes our way on its own.
The mind has become empty.
In the experiment of Bardo, as soon as a person dies, instructions are given from the outside that he should remain fully awake.
So when your body is about to fall, consider it a blessing.
everything has become silent.
What is really amazing is that in spite of being human we behave like animals! It is not at all surprising that in some past life we have all been animals, but even as humans our consciousness can be so low that we may appear like humans only on the physical level.
Just as there is a method to revive memories, there is also a way to forget them.
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.
I may relax and go to sleep -- I dont want this to happen at the moment of death.
I advised her parents to bring the girl to me, and to let me help her forget the memories of her past lives.
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One who wants to remember the past has to give up, absolutely, any interest in the future.
But how long he remained in those species is a different matter.
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If the very birth happens out of our choice, then we can live the rest of our lives in choice.
If we delve into our past lives, we will be able to recall the species we have passed through so far.
Let yourself go as if you are dead, as if you have really died.
And this implication will change your life, will change the way you are living now completely -- it will be an entirely different situation.
For example, note down the events of today on a piece of paper and lock it away.
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.
It is sure to come; there is nothing more certain than death.
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.
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.
When we watch a movie it appears to be real.
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.
Let him tell you how and when he got that injury.
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.
Seeing Life as a Dream
In the beginning people had great difficulty following him.
I have heard.
This is very common; this sort of oscillation occurs in everyones life.
The physicians who examined him declared that his legs had no more strength left to walk -- and yet he kept walking the whole night.
" As he walked, he told his friends, "Just a little bit longer -- ten more steps and all will be over.
The river is chaotic, unrestrained; it too will reach somewhere, but its destination is not certain.
But before departing let me tell you I dropped my body long ago.
And the interesting thing is that the misery we dont want comes on its own, and the happiness we seek never comes.
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ONE FRIEND HAS ASKED: ONE CAN DIE FULLY CONSCIOUS, BUT HOW CAN ONE BE IN FULL CONSCIOUSNESS AT BIRTH?
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She could recognize her distant relatives and tell many things about them even they had forgotten.
Deep down inside we are still rocks; thats why when someone pushes us to that layer we behave like a rock, we can act like a rock.
We want to prolong our enjoyable dreams, while the painful ones d
九九藏书issolve by themselves.
When a person gathers enough strength to invite misery, it means he is so happy that he can invite suffering now.
29 October 1969 am in Meditation Camp at Dwarka, Gujarat, India A few questions have been asked about last nights talk.
If the body falls, so be it; if it bends forward, let it bend.
Where are his friends of past lives? Where are his relatives, his wife and children, the houses he lived in? Where is that world? Where is everything he took to be so real? Where are those worries that gave him sleepless nights? Where are those pains and sufferings that seemed so insurmountable, that he carried like a dead weight on his back? And what became of the happiness he longed for? What happened to everything he so toiled and suffered for? If you ever remember your past life, and if you lived for seventy years, then whatever you might have seen in those seventy years, would that look like a dream or a reality? Indeed, it would look like a dream which had come and withered away.
When someone is about to die, people who know gather around him and make him do Bardo.
Thats why you see beasts in nightclubs, displaying beastly tendencies.
Even in the mothers womb he remains fully conscious.
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.
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.
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Just look at them; be a witness to them -- because ordinarily the mind is incapable of bearing such vast turbulence all at once.
Be a witness.
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It is not necessarily so.
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.
The body is left behind, left far away; the mind is left far away, only a lamp is burning, a lamp of consciousness, only the light is left burning.
The notes of music which came drifting to his house would jolt him to his very core.
After a hard days work, man turns into an animal; hence the world of night is different from the world of the day.
If a person can stay conscious after death, for a while he will not know that he is dead.
" When asked who he was referring to, he replied that he was referring to Ram.
let go.
Only two hours later did he complain that his hand hurt; he did not feel anything for two hours.
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Now only the body will fall -- there is no way for me to fall down.
But only he who has meditated in his life can be made to go through Bardo -- not otherwise.
Move away.
If you are still holding back a little, let that go also.
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.
Both died on the same day.
For the same reason, there is much hope that children will turn towards God, but there is less hope for old people -- they are in the twilight of their lives; life must have taken everything away from them by now.
Hence, at times, although we take a jump and touch these potentialities, we drop back to earth again.
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.
The queen screamed, and the kings sleep came to an abrupt end.
When Swami Ram was in America people had great difficulty following him in the beginning.
It is the memory of the pain and the hurt of the previous life that turns her into a chaste woman.
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She was a real mess; she was in great distress.
So even though her body is eleven years old, her mind and personality are those of a seventy-eight-year-old woman.
The difference between God and matter is of percentage.
I had warned her in the first place not to recall her past life without sufficient preparation.
In the morning, when a man gets up -- refreshed by a good nights rest, fresh and cheerful -- the beggar hopes he will be a little humane.
Happiness drowns us; misery disconnects us and sets us apart from the self.
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.
At the time of his death, his friends saw a kind of light in his eyes.
let go completely -- as if you are no more.
I am in a great quandary.
If one meditates throughout his life, he will attain to total meditation at the moment of death.
Meditation has a focus, and if one wants to channel it in a particular direction then it has to be used like a flashlight.
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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.
But at this point that is not the question.
And so the dream of being a mahatma is more dangerous than the dream of being a thief.
IS THIS POSSIBLE?
be totally dead.
When he was asked, "Which Ram?" he said, pointing to himself, "This Ram -- the poor guy was freezing cold last night.
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.
Our mind is future-oriented, not past-oriented.
The experience is so novel it cannot be grasped through conventional definition.
In life, this distance has never been experienced before.
The sadhana, the journey towards awakening, will have to begin long before death; a preparation will have to be made for it.
But there are already enough uninvited miseries in the world -- no need to invite any more.
For example, there is a big house with underground cellars.
Keep watching, remain a witness.
Take a look inside to be sure that you are not holding your body back.
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.
Scratch the surface a little and the beast emerges from within -- and it comes out so violently that one wonders if the person was ever a human being at all.
Since we all die in a state of unconsciousness and are born in a state of unconsciousness, we remember nothing of our past lives.
move within totally, move away from thoughts also.
So one should start on the journey as soon as possible, as early in the morning as possible.
The parents were not interested in having her forget the past.
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.
The mind has become silent and empty, the mind has become totally empty.
But this is a very deep experiment.
" The elderly people in the town supported her story, admitting that the brother had, indeed, fallen from the horse.
Let go.
The monk replied, "In my previous birth I had disciples who later turned into enemies.
First of all, you have to let yourself go completely.
If death occurs in an unconscious state, then birth happens in a state of unconsciousness too.
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.
A man may lie on thorns just to experience that the thorns only prick the body and not his self.
With each breath the silence will go deeper.
Unexpectedly, she had remembered three of her past lives.
Jati-smaran -- recalling past lives -- is at the base of it.
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.
He is told to keep watching whatever follows next, because in that state, many times things happen which the dying person can never understand.
Thats why I have said that this is an experiment with death.
The breathing has calmed down, the breathing has slowed down.
What she learned about her past life shook her, and now she wanted to forget it.
Upvasa means residing closer and closer.
Alaya-vigyan means the storehouse of consciousness.
Without preparation one is sure to remain unconscious in death.
And the thing that distinguishes them from the rest of us is awareness.
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.
Ouspensky died while taking his last step.
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How many times before have these winds blown! How many times before have these clouds moved in the sky! They all appeared and then they vanished, and so will the ones here now -- they are already in the process of disappearing! If we can come to realize this, we will experience what is known as maya.
The body is still, thoughts are still, only the lamp of consciousness is left watching, only the seer is left, only the witness is left.
We can channelize the power of meditation towards our past lives also; meditation simply means the focusing of attention.
So there are these two things: if we dig within we come across our various past states of being; and if we are thrown forward in the chain of births, we experience the states which lie ahead of us.
But one needs to make preparations for this, a continuous preparation.
The stream of our thoughts is future-oriented, and it is in lifes interests that the mind be future-oriented, not past-oriented.
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.
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.
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.
So our friend is right in asking whether it is possible that a man may have been an animal or a bird in his past life.
Give up your hold completely.
Perhaps you will only make heads or tails of an event after rearranging the order several times.
But then we also forget what happened to us during the last movie, and once again, when we go to a new film, we start believing in its events.
Our minds are one-dimensional.
"And the prostitute? While she languished in the pit of misery, she always wondered what unknown bliss the holy man was in.
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.
Let your breathing go too, just give up your hold on it completely.
My effort in these three days will be to help you understand that meditation is the technique for that very awakening.
The body is relaxing.
Without this preparation, it is difficult to enter into past lives.
There is some hope that the man, up and refreshed in the morning, will turn towards God; there is less hope for this to happen from a man who is tired in the evening.
Becoming a mahatma, a holy man, is as much of a dream as becoming a thief -- you can have good dreams and you can have bad dreams.
But the form of a flashlight is like a focused lamp.
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.
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It took about fifteen days -- only then did the wave of memories stop.
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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.
This lady used to claim that she was very pious, a woman of impeccable character.
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.
We sow a seed in the beginning, and the flower appears in the end.
everything else will be dead outside.
We have the potential to become divine; however, what we are now consists of what we have been in the past.
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They are awakened and we are asleep.