---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Hidden Harmony"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "HARMON"
dategiven: "27 December 1974 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #7"
chaptertitle: "A Dry Soul is Wisest and Best"
acode: "7412270"
shorttitle: "HARMON07"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "83mins"
displaytitle: "The Hidden Harmony: Chapter #7"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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<p class="sutra">A DRUNKEN MAN HAS TO BE LED BY A YOUNG BOY,
WHOM HE FOLLOWS STUMBLING
AND NOT KNOWING WHITHER HE GOES,
FOR HIS SOUL IS MOIST.</p>
<p class="sutra">SOULS TAKE PLEASURE IN BECOMING MOIST.</p>
<p class="sutra">A DRY SOUL IS WISEST AND BEST.</p>


Just as I said yesterday, human consciousness can follow two ways. One way is that of water, flowing downwards; the other way is that of fire, moving upwards. These are symbols, water and fire, but very meaningful.


When you flow downwards you become more and more unconscious. When you flow upwards you become more and more conscious. Upwardness is consciousness; downwardness is unconsciousness.


Heraclitus calls the downward flow of consciousness the state of moisture, and the upward rise of consciousness the state of dryness. Moisture and dryness depend on fire and water. And he says the spirit, the human mind, takes pleasure in being moist.


All pleasure is downward. Wherever you are seeking pleasure, you will go downwards, because pleasure means being unconscious. Pleasure means being in a certain state where you don't know any anxiety -- not that the anxieties have disappeared, but you are unconscious. The world remains the same; the anxieties are there waiting for you, increasing, not decreasing, because as time moves they will increase. Your problems remain the same, even become more complicated. While you are unconscious, everything is growing: it doesn't wait for your consciousness to be there. Your misery is growing, your anguish is growing, waiting for you. You are unconscious so you are not aware. Whenever you come to consciousness again, you will have to face all the problems you had escaped.


Pleasure is escape. That's why pleasure is not worth it. In fact it is not pleasure, it is a sort of suicide. You escape from the problems, you put your back to the problems, but this is no way to solve them. You will have to come back, because once you have become conscious, unconsciousness cannot be a permanent state of affairs. You can have a dive into unconsciousness, but how long can you remain underwater? For a second -- and then you are back again to the surface. You cannot remain unconscious for long. Alcohol or drugs or sex or anything in which you become unconscious, in which you lose for a moment all your worries, forget about them -- it is a forgetfulness, but forgetfulness cannot be a permanent state.


So this is not helping in any way, pleasure doesn't help. You have to come back again and again -- and then it becomes a vicious circle. When you come back and you find the anguish is waiting, the anxiety, all the problems -- rather, they have increased -- you become afraid, you become nervous. Your whole being trembles and becomes fear; then you have to escape again and again. The more you escape, the more problems increase. The more problems you face, the more alcohol is needed. And then the quantity of the intoxicant has to be increased continuously because you become attuned to it. You take a certain quantity of a drug: the first day you feel unconscious. After a few days you are not unconscious; you are still conscious, worries are still there knocking at the door, you can hear -- you need a greater quantity. The greater quantity will also become less. You can move to a point.... In India they have tried; there are a few sects which have been working through alcohol, drugs, things like marijuana, mescaline. In the West it is a new phenomenon; that's why the West is so worried about it. In the East it is one of the oldest things.


A particular sect of Tantrikas have been working through drugs, finding a way to attain consciousness through drugs, and they have found that, by and by, you become so attuned that nothing can make you unconscious. Then they have poisonous snakes -- just a bite and an ordinary men will die. When no drug affects them, then they take the snake to their tongue so the tongue is bitten by the snake. Ordinarily a man will die immediately. They do it just to seek unconsciousness through the most poisonous thing -- but even that doesn't affect them. A time comes when the man is completely beyond the world of drugs; you cannot make him unconscious, nothing helps. And this man, if he bites you, you will die immediately. His whole body is poisonous.


In old, ancient Indian history, there is reference to a particular detective woman. Every king had beautiful girls to be trained from their very childhood in such a way that their whole body became poisonous. They were known as VISHKANYA, as poisonous girls -- very beautiful. And then the king could send those girls to the enemies, to the enemy king, and they were so beautiful that he was bound to be attracted. Once they kissed the king, the king was dead. They were absolutely poisonous. Even their kiss was enough -- no need to bite.


A moment comes when no drug helps. These Tantrikas have been working through drugs towards awareness. When no drug affects you, you are already integrated, and now you can move towards the height without any fear of falling -- because you cannot be made unconscious, you have crystallized your consciousness. But ordinarily one is not working through drugs for consciousness, and the path is very dangerous. Ordinarily one is seeking unconsciousness, a little forgetfulness in this world of worries, anguish, anxiety, this world which looks like a hell. One wants to forget. All your pleasures are just forgetfulness.


Heraclitus says this is a moist state of consciousness. The word is beautiful -- he calls these souls, moist souls. And he says souls enjoy pleasure. Why? -- because pleasure is a downward drift. No effort is needed: you don't have to do anything, you simply sink downwards. It is down the hill; you can run easily. No effort is needed, the very pull of gravity helps you come down. Moving upwards is difficult; that's why you seek pleasure, you never seek bliss.
Bliss is upward, pleasure is downward.
Pleasure is forgetfulness, bliss is remembrance.


Gurdjieff says that the only technique to become integrated is selfremembrance, and all the masters of the world have been insisting on being more and more conscious. The more conscious you become, the more a certain dryness happens inside. Literally, you become more and more dry, more and more aware, more and more conscious and alert. Because awareness is fire, that's why you become more and more dry.


Listen to these words and try to understand them. They will be a great help on the path you are following.
<p class="sutra">A DRUNKEN MAN HAS TO BE LED BY A YOUNG BOY,
WHOM HE FOLLOWS STUMBLING
AND NOT KNOWING WHITHER HE GOES,
FOR HIS SOUL IS MOIST.

Imagine the picture, visualize it:</p>
<p class="sutra">A DRUNKEN MAN HAS TO BE LED BY A YOUNG BOY,
WHOM HE FOLLOWS STUMBLING
AND NOT KNOWING WHITHER HE GOES,
FOR HIS SOUL IS MOIST.</p>


This is very symbolic. When you are drunk, you fall back, you regress, you become again a small boy -- but this regression is not growth. You have to become like a small boy, not by regressing but by growing ahead, growing forward, growing upward. You have to become like a boy, not by falling back, but by going forward. Falling back you will become juvenile; falling back you will not gain, you will lose; falling back, the whole system inside becomes crippled. Then on the outside you look like an adult, and in the inside you are just like a small boy; not a child, but childish; not innocent, but very, very cunning. And the cunningness is so deep that you are not cunning with others -- you are playing tricks with yourself, with your own consciousness, with your own future; with your own possibilities you are playing cunning tricks. You are falling back, regressing.


You carry all the stages that you have passed. Once you were in the womb. A part of you still remains of that state because you cannot throw off things. You simply grow, and all that has become past becomes your foundation. In you everything exists, not only from this life, but from other lives; not only from human lives, but from animal, vegetable lives. Everything exists, nothing is lost. You carry everything of the past -- you are your past. The whole past is there and you can regress -- any moment. It is just like a ladder: you can go back. And when you are drunk you go back. You will become not only like a child, you can also become like a vegetable. Just see a drunkard lying down in the gutter on the road: he does not look human at all. He has regressed, he is vegetating; you cannot even say that he is alive. How can you say this man is human? What humanity is he showing right now? What is the difference between him and a tree? The only difference is that the tree is in a better state, because at least the tree is not drunk. And this man has fallen back, he has become like a tree.


You can be so drugged.... In the West they use the word stoned. It is very good -- you become like a stone. That is the last thing. You are not even a vegetable. You are rocklike, all the possibilities lost. You have come to the last step of the ladder, to the very bottom. Millions of years you have regressed -- and that can be done in seconds. And then you become helpless, helpless in a negative way, an imbecile. You behave like an idiot, you don't know what you are doing. You are not, in fact; you are absent, your presence is lost. Inside now, no center exists. This is the state of moisture: no center. You have become water, no center, and the water is overflowing everywhere -- without any direction, without any inner integrity. If in this moment you die, you will not even be aware that you are dead. Whatsoever happens in this moment, you will not know. You are not. This is an absent state of mind. You have fallen down completely, you have reached to the bottom.


This is easy -- and souls enjoy it because anything that is easy you enjoy. No effort is needed. You do not have to follow a path, you do not have to do anything on your part. You need not worry, you need not think -- you simply drop. In fact, this is what dropping out is. You have dropped out of the whole effort of evolution. You are no more part of a growing existence, you are no more part of the constantly evolving divinity. You have lost all. This state is the worst possible. And this happens not only through intoxicants, this happens through many things. So that, too, has to be remembered. You may not be taking any intoxicant, you may not be on drugs, but there are many subtle drugs -- any "trip" can become a drug.


You may just be chanting a mantra continuously; not with awareness, just chanting it. If you chant a mantra continuously without awareness, it becomes alcoholic, it gives you unconsciousness. You will feel very much pleasure, but no bliss. You are falling back. In India, that too has been used for thousands of years, and thousands of people have been chanting mantras continuously. If you go and look at them, you will find them also stoned -- through mantra they have become unconscious. Of course, they don't have any worries, because to have any worries you need awareness. They are happy, but their happiness is like death -- stale, stony. Their happiness is not like a flower flowering; their happiness is a stagnant pool, not like a river flowing. They are not moving at all, the whole inner movement has ceased.


I talked to you about two types of movement: one vertical, the other horizontal. They have stopped the horizontal movement, but they have not started the vertical movement. They are simply as if dead, buried alive in their own bodies; their bodies have become graves. You can go and you will find many of them near Tibet, the Himalayas. You will find many people just sitting chanting. Continuous chanting has created such a boredom within them that they have become dull, they have lost all sensitivity. They are not more alive because of it, they are less alive. They can become so dull that they can lie down on a bed of nails -- because they have no sensitivity in the body they have shrunken inside. And this is a deeper intoxicant than any alcohol ever invented -- because they are the masters of their own alcohol, they can create it inside.


Chanting a word continuously without awareness, you regress. If chanting is to be done, then with awareness it has to be done; you are to remain a witness. If you are chanting Aum, Aum, Aum, you have to remain a witness to it. The chanting should be done by the body and you should remain a witness. If the witness is lost, the chanting is alcoholic -- it has become an intoxicant. And there are other ways. A politician is on a drug trip. Power, prestige -- they are alcoholic. So whenever somebody reaches power, he is no longer in his senses. Power corrupts and corrupts absolutely -- because power is a drug. When you are powerful you are no longer in your consciousness. Then you start doing things you would never have imagined. You cannot yourself believe that you can do such things.


Read Adolf Hitler and his life, what he did. And he never smoked, he was against alcohol -- he was a perfect sannyasin! Early in the morning he would get up, early in the night he would go to sleep; no smoking, no drinking... vegetarian, not a meateater. And what he did! Such a perfect Jaina you cannot find anywhere, and what he did! But he was taking the greatest drug. That's why there was no need to smoke cigarettes -- they are nothing. There was no need to drink, because he was already drunk with power.


Those who watched Adolf Hitler, they say when he started to talk, soon everybody there felt that there had come a transfiguration. When he would start he was Adolf Hitler; by and by, he would become completely unconscious, as if mesmerized by his own talking: his eyes no longer showing any aliveness, as if he was not there, as if somebody else had taken possession -- possessed! And then his possession and his alcoholic state, his "moisture," would immediately infect others. He could create madness very easily. He was so neurotic, and such a charismatic neurotic, that whosoever would come around him would become neurotic; he was a magnetically neurotic man. His own alcohol was overflowing, and people would become intoxicated -- that's how he led the whole German race towards suicide.


Power is a drug, the greatest drug the world has ever known. And this is beautiful: politicians are always against drugs, and they are the greatest drugtakers, on the greatest drug trip! But you can make your own private drugs also. Wealth: just look when a person is achieving riches -- he is no more there, absent completely! He moves, he works hard, but he doesn't know what he is doing. He is completely unconscious. And then there are private drugs. You can become a painter, you can become a poet, and that can become your trip. Anything in which you forget yourself, anything in which you lose consciousness, anything in which you become so identified -- whatsoever you are doing -- that the witnessing is lost, is a drug. And Heraclitus calls this the moist state. And:
<p class="sutra">SOULS TAKE PLEASURE IN BECOMING MOIST.</p>


No effort is needed, no strain, no facing of the reality. You simply hide. You hide, you escape, you close your eyes, just like an ostrich. And when you are with closed eyes, you cannot see anything -- you are happy. This is all that you call happiness. But this happiness cannot last -- it is momentary.


When you fall in love with a person, you feel very, very happy. This is a drug. This is a drug your body hormones create within you; it is a biological drug. Nature has to use it because nature cannot rely on you. Just think: if there is nothing like love, the world will cease -- because sex is so ridiculous. If there is no love, then sex seems to be just ridiculous! Who will move into sex if there is no intoxicant around it?


Love is just like a bait. The real desire of nature is to reproduce. But you cannot be relied upon; if you don't fall in love, then you will not reproduce. You fall in love -- nature is playing a trick. Nature is giving some drug, releasing some drug into your body. It has drug glands inside the body from where it releases the drug. It is a natural, biological, hormonal drug. That's why whenever someone is in love, see, he walks differently. He is no more here -- absent completely, lives in the imagination and the desire and the dream, does not live in the reality. He has drugged himself unknowingly. And after a few days, when the love is gone -- because no drug can last for ever -- by the time the honeymoon is over, it is also over. Then you start facing reality. Then there is trouble because whatsoever you promised, you promised when you were not conscious. Now you have to fulfill promises given in a moist state, given in a state of unconsciousness. Now you have to fulfill those promises; now the burden grows. Every love affair, in the end, becomes ugly. Why? Every marriage comes to the rocks. Why? -- because it is not a conscious phenomenon. If you love consciously then love can be eternal, because with consciousness everything is eternal. With unconsciousness everything is momentary.


If you can love consciously, not a victim of biological tricks, not a victim of nature, but a conscious love, then you don't fall in love, you rise in love. Then love itself becomes an integrating force, not a disintegration. Then love itself becomes an awareness. Then in relationship you become more and more aware. You care for the other, but you don't use the other. You care and share, but you don't possess. You liberate the other, and through the other's liberation you liberate yourself. You become two partners in an ultimate journey. You help each other, because there are pitfalls; the path is long and the journey is eternal. And it is very good to be with someone who can share every anguish, who can share every pain, who can share every suffering, who can share every bliss, who can share every moment of silence; with whom you can communicate, with whom you can say what is happening to you, and on whom you can rely that he will be helpful whatsoever happens to you, on whom you can rely that he will love you in whatsoever situation you are -- good or bad, angry or happy, sad or blissful. You need not hide anything with someone you love: you can remain open and vulnerable. And whatsoever the situation, the love is unconditional; it doesn't depend on conditions.


A conscious love is a totally different phenomenon. Rarely it happens, but whenever it happens it is one of the most beautiful things that is possible in this world.


But ordinarily your love is just a drug. I observe it every day: a couple comes and they say they are deeply in love, and just a week has not passed and they come again -- they say everything is falling apart. Just a week! And just a week before you could not have imagined -- their eyes, their faces were radiant with love, their bodies were filled with something unknown, they were intoxicated. And just a week and everything is finished! What type of love is this? It is not love at all. You have been doped by nature; nature played a trick.


Nature wants you to move into sex. It creates the dreamworld around sex, because sex in itself is ugly. It is really ridiculous! Just think: without love, you are in a sexual relationship with someone. It is simply ugly. That's why prostitutes are ugly. Howsoever beautiful the bodies they have, they cannot be beautiful because the very act, without love, makes their whole life ugly, dirty. You can tolerate sex only because of love. Because of love, the sex also looks beautiful; otherwise, the postures, the gestures of sex, are all ridiculous. But when you are drugged you are not aware of what is happening. When you are drugged you never look at yourself. The whole world looks ridiculous, not you.


It happened: Mulla Nasruddin was psychoanalyzed. And when he was brought to the psychoanalyst, the psychoanalyst asked a few questions: just a test to know what type of person this Nasruddin is. He drew a line and asked Nasruddin, "What does it remind you of?"


Nasruddin said, "Of course, a beautiful woman!" -- a line! The psychiatrist was a little puzzled.


Then he drew a circle and asked, "What does THIS remind you of?"


Nasruddin said, "Of course, a beautiful woman -- in the nude."


Then he drew a triangle and Nasruddin closed his eyes and said, "No, no, no, don't do this!"


The psychoanalyst said, "But what does it remind you of?"


He said, "This woman is doing something very nasty."


So the psychoanalyst said, "You seem to be very much preoccupied with sex."


Nasruddin: "What! ME? I am preoccupied with sex -- or you? Who is drawing these nasty figures on the paper? -- you or me?" You can see the whole world -- but you cannot see yourself. This is the state of moisture: when one is completely unaware, oblivious of who he is, what he is doing, why he is doing it.


When you start meditating you become very, very confused in the beginning, because for the first time you become aware: What are you doing? Why are you doing it? For what? You were not aware before. You feel very much confused because for the first time the eyes are opening towards reality. And then, if you don't escape, by and by you feel that you are cracking -- not only confused, you are going mad! You have always been mad but you were not aware. Now you are becoming aware and the madness has to be faced. And if you don't face it, you cannot grow. Escape is not growth, and all dimensions of intoxicants are escapes. And when you are in an unconscious state you may believe that you are doing something meaningful, but that is a sheer belief, ungrounded. When you become conscious, only then do you come to know that you have simply been doing nonsense. It has not led anywhere. And whatsoever you believed was just befooling yourself.


I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin knocked at the door of the tavern in the early morning, three o'clock. The owner of the tavern looked from an upstairs window, very angry of course, and he said, "Go away, whosoever you are! This is not the time, and you cannot get any drink."


Nasruddin said, "Who has come to get drink? I am here to take my crutches. At closing time I forgot them, and as you know, and the whole world knows, I cannot walk without my crutches. And now I have to go back to my home so give my crutches back!" He has always been walking on crutches, not knowing that he can walk without crutches -- believing in them. Unconscious, he left the crutches in the tavern, and he had been wandering around the town the whole night. And now, when he is coming back to consciousness, he asks for his crutches back because he says, "The whole world knows that I cannot walk without the crutches."


Your beliefs are your crutches. You cannot walk without them, you cannot live without them. You cannot think how you will be without your beliefs -- they are your crutches. When you become aware, you simply cannot think that you existed in such a state of affairs for so long.


But in a moist state of mind, things happen. You are not in control of anything. They just go on happening, and you go on reacting. A woman laughs at you, and you are in love. You start talking to her and appreciating her, and because you appreciate, she starts falling in love with you. Now the hormones have started functioning. Now you are on the drug trip. Soon you will become aware and you will have to come out of it. And when you come out of it again, it is painful. And you cannot tolerate the pain, it is too much, intolerable. Sooner or later, just to console yourself, to intoxicate yourself again, you will find another woman. And the same circle goes on being repeated... and a man who is drugged can believe anything.


I once asked Mulla Nasruddin, "Is your new relationship with the banker's daughter growing?" -- because I know the banker and I know the daughter, and it seems to be a difficult thing, almost impossible. But Nasruddin beamed very happily.


He said, "Yes, recently there are signs, hints, indications. Things are falling in line."


So I asked, "What has happened? Has she started smiling at you or something?"


He said, "No, not exactly that -- but last night she said, 'This is for the last time I am saying no to you!'" When one is drugged, one has his own interpretations. "The last time I am saying no to you!" When you are not in your consciousness you don't know what yes means, what no means. You don't know anything, you simply drift. This drifting state is the state of moisture.
<p class="sutra">A DRUNKEN MAN HAS TO BE LED BY A YOUNG BOY,
WHOM HE FOLLOWS STUMBLING
AND NOT KNOWING WHITHER HE GOES,
FOR HIS SOUL IS MOIST.</p>
<p class="sutra">SOULS TAKE PLEASURE IN BECOMING MOIST.</p>


You all take pleasure in becoming moist because that is the easiest thing to do. That's the only pleasure in it -- the easiest. You need not do anything, you simply leave yourself and you drift. You fall towards the earth and the gravitation pulls you down. And you feel very, very happy, because no strain, no effort -- nothing!


People come to me: they say they cannot get up early in the morning for the meditation. Even that much effort is too much for you. And if you cannot get up early in the morning to meditate, what else can you do? What else do you think you can do? You don't want to make any effort -- but your demands are very high. Even a man who cannot get up early in the morning to meditate asks how peace of mind is possible, asks, "How will I come to know God?" -- asks, "Help me! I don't want to come again to this world" -- but nobody comes to this world. If you live in a drifting way, if you live always falling downwards -- choosing the easiest, choosing the path of least resistance, choosing the path of no challenge, no struggle, nothing, just falling, living on the gravitation -- then you need not make any effort to come. There is no need to come, you WILL be coming, because this is how one comes into this world: a moist state of mind will always revolve around this world. Only a dry soul can fly towards the sky because on a dry soul there is no effect of gravitation; the downward pull doesn't exist for a dry soul. Then what is the meaning of being dry?


The meaning of being dry is: Keep alert. Whatsoever you do, do it knowingfully -- whatsoever! I don't say, "Don't do this and don't do that." Simply be more alert whatsoever you do, and then, by and by, every act helps you to become more and more dry. Then a detachedness comes to you. With alertness you automatically become detached.


You love a person, but still it is not an attachment. You love a person, you care, you share your being, you give everything, but still it is not an attachment -- it is very, very detached. And when there is a detached love, there is nothing like that -- it is the most beautiful flowering. Love and detached: it means it comprehends both the polarities. It is paradoxical -- because you can be detached without love, or you can be in love without detachment. That's easy, to choose one extreme, one polarity. To choose both the polarities together -- detached and in love -- what does it mean? It means you are alert. Doing whatsoever needs to be done, but remaining alert, you are detached. Then you can live in this world without being a part of this world. Then you can be in the world and the world will not be in you.


This dryness comes as more and more you close the ways of falling asleep, you close the doors of falling downwards, you close the doors of pleasures -- you don't seek pleasures. Remember, happiness is not pleasure. Happiness is a different phenomenon -- it is a state of being.


Pleasure is a forgetfulness, happiness is a remembrance.


And when remembrance becomes absolute, when remembrance is so absolute that there is no possibility of falling down from it, then arises bliss. Between bliss and pleasure is happiness.


Don't ask for pleasures, because if you ask for pleasures you will become a victim of the downward drift, the gravitation. Look at a person who is too addicted to food; when he eats, just watch him. You will see that he is completely unconscious -- because how many times, millions of times, has he decided not to eat too much? And again, when the food comes, he forgets or he rationalizes: "This time, once only this time again... next time I am going to follow...."


Mulla Nasruddin was dieting, and the doctor had said, "Now, it is the last time. If you don't listen to me you can be certain that you will have to leave the body. You are going to die, because so much of a burden your heart cannot carry any more" -- he had had two heart attacks already.


And just the next day he was eating, eating as much as four men would find even more than enough. Then he suddenly looked at his wife and said, "What are you doing, sitting there? You don't even have that much will to stop me from going off my diet." The wife! -- even for that the wife is responsible: she doesn't have that much willpower to stop him.


Nobody can stop you. Nobody's will will be of any help to you. Rather, on the contrary, it can be destructive. Somebody stops you too much; then you start going against it, you react. The upward flow cannot be forced by anybody. And this is a very subtle and delicate phenomenon to be understood: if people try too much to make you good, make efforts all around you, they will force you downwards because your ego will feel a resistance. This is very delicate, because those who want to help you towards the height cannot force you, they can only persuade you. This is all that I am doing. Even sometimes I see that this can be stopped, but I cannot stop it. I see that you are taking a step downwards and I can talk to you, I can make you aware. I can say, "Stop and this will do much," but that cannot be said because if I say too much, then I will help you to go downwards. You will take the step even sooner -- because your ego will come in. I can only persuade you. I can divert your mind. I can give you a plaything to play with so that you forget that you were going to take a step there -- your mind is diverted. But I cannot say, "No, don't take that step." If I say, "No," it is almost certain that you will take that step.


This is the problem. A master has to persuade you. And this has become more and more difficult in the modern world. In the old days it was easier because people were taught to be obedient, now they are taught to be rebellious. In the old days people were taught to be disciplined, now they are taught to be undisciplined. Now to be undisciplined is something very meaningful; now to be disciplined is just to be part of the establishment. To be disciplined is to be square, to be undisciplined is to be a revolutionary.


In the old days it was simple because the master could have said, "No," and he could have relied on it that the no would do. A simple no can save you many lives of unnecessary struggle. But now it is impossible, now it is difficult. You have to be persuaded in such an indirect way that you never feel that you are being persuaded. You have to be diverted in such a subtle way that you don't become aware that you are being led somewhere. Even if you become aware that somebody is guiding you, you resist -- and then you will do just the opposite. This creates a very new phenomenon in the world, this is something new in the modern age. That's why to achieve the ultimate has become more and more difficult -- unnecessary wastage of energy. I can see, I am seeing, that you are taking a step in the dark, that you will fall down, you will be crippled, but even then I cannot say, "Don't take that step," because you won't listen. And if I say no you will feel more attracted towards it.


That's how Adam fell. God said, "No, don't eat the fruit of this tree!" -- and then he had to. He fell because God said no. Now, if God creates another garden of Eden, he is not going to commit that mistake again. Rather, on the contrary, it will be good to say, "Only eat the fruit of this tree, and all other trees are prohibited." Then Adam will not be tempted, then he will not go towards that tree. Particularly the modern Adam is in an absolutely chaotic state of consciousness -- much too moist, falling like a dead weight, continuously falling towards the valley, the downward flow. Of course, pulling upwards will need effort.
<p class="sutra">SOULS TAKE PLEASURE IN BECOMING MOIST.
A DRY SOUL IS WISEST AND BEST.</p>


The whole of wisdom consists in becoming a dry soul. But try to understand: dry doesn't mean that you become insensitive; dry doesn't mean that you become uncaring; dry doesn't mean that you become aloof, indifferent -- no. Dry simply means that you become aware. You care, you have a deep concern, but this concern never becomes an anxiety. You care. As much as you can do you do for others -- for your wife, friend, daughter, son, your husband, father, mother -- whatsoever you can do you do totally. That's all. Then whatsoever happens, you accept it. There is no frustration. You do everything that is possible, then what is the frustration? Then there is no frustration. Then you don't feel worried that you should have done this or that. No, you have done everything -- then it is finished! You come clean out of every relationship, not dirty.


But ordinarily, if the soul is moist, after every relationship you come out dirty. The relationship doesn't cleanse you, it makes you dirty. It is not really the relationship that makes you dirty, it is your moisture. It is just like when your clothes are wet and you go for a walk -- when you come back you will be very, very dirty because the dirt will cling; not because the road was dirty but because your clothes were wet. And the same happens inside also: if your soul is moist, whatsoever you do you come out of it dirty -- because all dirt clings to it. If you are dry then nothing clings to it. The dust is blowing there but it cannot cling to you. Buddha lives in the same world as you live in, but you feel every day you are becoming dirty. Buddha remains fresh, as if he has taken a bath just now, clean. The cleanliness depends on dryness, and dryness comes the more you become aware.


When you are aware, you become like a flame inside. The flame goes on burning; even when you are asleep, the flame burns. Ordinarily, even when you are awake, you are sleepwalkers. But when the flame is burning and you are alert, alert to every moment, alert to the whole of what is happening all around, alert -- not in a concentrative way, because if you concentrate then you become alert to one point and you become unconscious of the whole thing -- just alert, an opening, all doors open, all dimensions open, you are simply alert, then also when you sleep these doors remain open and the fresh air goes on flowing. Deep down a flame burns in you and that flame dries all moisture, all unconsciousness.


This is the meaning of being enlightened. It is not achieving some god -- there is none -- somebody waiting for you. Rather, it is becoming a god oneself, because when you are aware, you are a god; when you are perfectly aware, you are a perfect god.
God is the absolutely dry state of being.


And if you become even a little dry -- A DRY SOUL IS WISEST AND BEST -- then you start becoming wiser, because all foolishness consists in being unconscious.


There was one case against Mulla Nasruddin in the court, and the magistrate said, "What? You have come again? But I was not expecting you this time. First you came for wrong parking, then you came for fast driving, then you came because your brakes were faulty, then you came because your lights were not working in the night, then you came for drunken driving. Now for what have you come? -- because last time I canceled, revoked your driving license!"


Nasruddin looked shamefacedly at the ground and then said, "Jaywalking, your honor."


A car is not needed. If all is taken from you so that then you think, "Because of this I am unconscious," that won't help -- then you will be found jaywalking. You will do something else because you will remain the same. People think that because of their wives they are entangled in the world. They leave their wives and escape to the Himalayas -- but this is just revoking the license. It won't help because you cannot escape from yourself. You will remain the same in the Himalayas and you will create the same situation again. The wife was there because of you. You will find another wife, you will find something else, and the same problem will arise. A dry soul is needed -- that is the Himalaya: the dryness, the alertness.


Whatsoever you do, make it a point not to do it in a sleepy way. Watch every act, every thought, every feeling. Watch and move. Every moment is very precious -- don't waste it in sleepiness. And if you use every moment as an opportunity to become more conscious, the consciousness grows by and by. One day, suddenly you find that the light is burning inside. If you work hard towards it, one day suddenly in the morning you rise completely a new man -- dry, unattached; loving, but not in any way involved; remaining in the world and yet a watcher on the hills. This is the paradox that has to be fulfilled: remaining in the world and yet watching from the hills; at the same time, simultaneously, being in the world and not being in it. And this is the wisest and the best soul. You have the potentiality. Just as every seed can become a tree, you can become a Buddha, a Heraclitus, a Jesus. But you have to work hard for it. Lukewarm efforts won't do. You have to boil completely: one hundred degrees' heat and then evaporation happens.


Water is moist, flows downwards. Heat is dry -- with heat even water flows upwards. With the flame of awareness even all that you have been thinking is wrong will become right. Love seems to be an entanglement, an imprisonment; with awareness that becomes a liberty, a freedom. Anger without consciousness is a destructive force, a suicidal force; it hurts you, it kills you by and by, it is a poison. With awareness the same energy is transfigured, becomes compassion. The same radiance comes to your face, but not in anger -- in compassion. The same blood flows, the same chemistry of the body, but a new foreign element has entered into it, and the whole chemistry changes.


That is how baser metals are transformed into gold. With unconsciousness you are a base metal, with consciousness you will become gold, you are transformed. Just the fire of awareness is needed. You lack nothing else, everything is there. With the fire of awareness a new arrangement happens. You lack nothing, remember; you have everything that a buddha needs. Just one thing is missing -- and that, too, is fast asleep within you. You just have to awaken it; just a few efforts to awaken, a few efforts to become more alert.


And remember, efforts will be needed right now. Heraclitus believes in effort. Zen masters believe in no effort, Heraclitus believes in effort -- but no effort is also an effort deep down because you have to attain the state of no effort.


In the West very much misunderstanding exists about Zen masters because they talk of no effort. But you see, twenty years a man has to be with the Zen master working hard to achieve no effort. With Heraclitus effort is the base, and if you make real effort, automatically the no-effort follows. When you have done all, you become skilled in it. You become so skilled that there is no need to do it -- it happens then. If you try towards awareness, by and by there simply is no need to do anything about it -- it is there, it is just like breathing. But as you are, Heraclitus will be more helpful than Zen masters. Zen masters came at the culmination of a school, the Buddhist school. One thousand years of hard effort and then Zen masters flowered. Zen masters are just at the end of a long effort, of a long journey. The plant is absolutely ready, then the plant flowers. There is no effort in flowering. What do you do? Nothing is needed -- the tree is ready and it flowers by itself. But to make the tree ready long effort is needed. Ask the gardener how much he has been working. You just look at the flower and then you think: "No effort is needed. They come by themselves."


Zen is the culmination of a long effort that started with Buddha. Heraclitus is just the beginning. And this is a misfortune: the Greek mind completely missed Heraclitus, couldn't understand him, and there has never been a culmination -- the flowering never happened. The Greek mind follows a totally different path. It never listened to Heraclitus and the flowering never happened. The seeds were lost, they never sprouted. But that's also why I have chosen Heraclitus -- that will make the whole complete. I have been talking about Zen masters; that can mislead you because that is the end. I must talk about Heraclitus so that you can understand the beginning also, because in you, also, there has to be a growth from the beginning to the end. From Heraclitus to Basho you have to move, from the seed to the flower.


Become a dry soul -- without becoming insensitive. If you become insensitive, you miss. Then you are simply dry without any awareness. Then the fire is not converted into awareness; then the fire has simply dried you. That won't help. Life dries many people that way automatically. Look at old people -- they are dried. Look at a child -- a child is moist. An old man is dried. Just the life dries all moisture out of him; just the struggle of life and he becomes insensitive; just to protect himself he becomes insulated -- that is not the point. You have to be like a child -- alive, elegant, graceful, agile -- and yet dry like an old man.


This is what is said about Lao Tzu, a beautiful story, that Lao Tzu was born already an old man. When he was born, he was eighty-two years old; he lived in his mother's womb for eighty-two years. This is a beautiful phenomenon! It is said that he was born with gray hair -- eighty-two years old, of course! A child and yet not a child... very, very old, completely dry. From his very childhood he was aware. That is the meaning -- that he was perfectly aware from the very beginning.


About Buddha it is said that when he was born, the first thing he did was to walk seven steps. The first thing! -- must have been very old. The first thing, just out of the womb. He was born standing and then he walked seven steps... with perfect awareness. The mother could not believe this. The whole phenomenon was so absurd that it is said she died simply out of shock. Then a story is told that whenever a buddha is born to a mother, the mother dies. It is too much, it is unbelievable; you cannot comprehend!


But these stories show something. They are not literal truths -- they are symbolic, metaphorical. In the East, never ask for history. These people in the East never believed in history. They believe in myth and they say history is useless. What is history? Just a compilation of newspapers, rubbish; old newspapers, that's all. They never believed in history, they believed in myth. They say myth is the essence; history is just on the periphery, events. Myth is the very essence of all that exists at the center.


Be like a child and be like an old man -- dry, all desires known, finished; all experiences known, finished; moved all over the world, reached to yourself, at home at last -- sensitive like a child and dry like an old man. And this is all that wisdom is all about. This is how one becomes wise.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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