1. The Unrealized Knowledge
First, I wish to tell you a few basic things before we enter into the program:
Whatever knowledge you have with you already, all the intellectual stuff that you have collected till now, from previous programs and from any reading, please keep it aside while you are here. Just sit as an open being. Then, it will be easy for me to help you. It would be a waste of your money if you sat here with all the old knowledge that you have in you already. Any knowledge that you have within you that has not become a solid experience for you as yet, should be sent out of your system.
Even if the knowledge was from my earlier programs, if whatever you have heard has not become an experience in you, do not carry it with you. Especially now, do not keep it in your head. Whatever has become a solid experience would have left your head long ago. It will be in your being. So whatever is still in the head has not become an experience. So, send it out. Sit in a completely relaxed way. You can be very free and relaxed. When you sit, don"t sit with an attitude of "I know this", "I know that", "I have heard this earlier", etc. A small story:
A young man worked hard and prepared for a presentation, and then delivered it to the target audience. The whole group enjoyed it except one professor – a highly intellectual person. At the end of the presentation, the young man asked that professor, 'Did you enjoy the presentation? What is your opinion of it?'
The professor replied, 'I know every word that you uttered in the presentation. I know the book from which it is taken. Then, how will I enjoy it? Every word which you used is there in that book.' The young man was shocked and said, 'No, I can't believe this, Professor.' The professor said, 'I will send you that book tomorrow.' The next day, the professor sent the book to him. The book was a dictionary!
Understand! You might think that this is amusing, but your mind also plays the same cunning role. It keeps concluding every minute, "I know everything that he is talking. I read it in that book, I read it in this book, I heard it spoken in that discourse," and what not. Your mind will always be taking things for granted.
Maybe this story is a little exaggerated, but your mind is not far from it. If you watch your mind closely, you will understand what I am saying. You will understand that the basic thread is the same, whether it is your mind or the professor"s; just the degree is different, that"s all.
1.1 Work towards experience
I always tell people: spending years and years in just acquiring knowledge is a mere waste. If you can work towards one solid experience, it is the best thing that can happen to you. What do I mean by experience? Experience means being convinced beyond your logic that ultimate truths are livable, that ultimate truths are reality. That is what I call experience.
Some people who are a little innocent, who don"t have a large amount of knowledge stored in them, will have the "click" or "experience" easily. Only those who don"t want to get rid of their knowledge, those who have vested interests in their knowledge, take ages to experience.
Understand: it is very rare to get the presence of an enlightened master in your life. I am telling you in very clear words not to miss it. When you are near a master, you are near such a great possibility, so do not waste it, merely because of your mind and the stored information. When I tell this to people, they don"t listen, and when I leave the country, they sit and repent for not having fully utilized the time and space around me.
1.2 Let go of that identity; have a real vacation!
One more important thing: be a little more flowing than your usual self during the time you are here. You are in a safe and blissful zone, so just let go. Don"t be frozen and serious. Nobody is here to exploit you; you are in a completely safe and secure zone. So be relaxed and open.
People are constantly holding onto their identity because they feel insecure and threatened that their identity might disappear if they let go. Deep down, all of you have a desire to actually be in a place where you don"t need to hold onto your identity; where no one will recognize you, and you can just let go and do what you wish to do. So, when I create such a situation, people see the possibility for it to happen, but feel insecure because of that. Just see the self-contradiction!
When you see a beach, or a resort, or a snow covered mountain in a website or on television or in photographs, you always feel that you should be there at that spot, is it not? You visualize and fantasize that you are traveling by boat and enjoying that ambience! But when you actually go to that spot, you don"t feel that same joy or ecstasy which you felt when you fantasized.
When you think of Miami, it is amazing, but when you live there, it is not so amazing. Why is this so? Because the desire swelling in you, is actually to be in a place where you don"t need to hold onto your identity. While this is your real desire, you think that the place is the real desire! You know that there is nobody in Miami who knows you and so you don"t have to hold onto your identity for survival. This is the actual thought under all the layers of thoughts. This thought does not even surface consciously; it is there subconsciously. This thought is an expression of your yearning for freedom from identity. This is what you are really searching for, not any fantasy place. Understand this truth very deeply and it will help you to have a real vacation here and now! Your desire for vacation is nothing but the desire to be away from your identity. But when you go there, without knowing the truth that you started out with, you try to establish your identity there also. In two days, you establish your same old identity firmly, and experience the same hell. You settle down comfortably with your old hell.
Now, for these two days, try to have a real vacation. Move away from your identity. First, move away from your friends and family; do not sit next to them. If you sit next to them, you will constantly feel obliged to react the way they would want you to. You will be having some identity or image of yourself with that relative. You will be forced to maintain that identity all the time, if you sit next to them; your words, your laughter, your body language, even the way you sit, etc. You will be unconsciously maintaining it all for their sake. And every time you do that, you will be establishing your old identity again. I have seen husbands who do not laugh completely when they are sitting with their wives. Every time they feel like laughing, they look for some kind of concurrence.
If the wife laughs, they will also laugh. So much of bonding is not required! At least, for these two days, you can be a little away from it and relax. It is for your own good that I am saying this, not for anything else.
1.3 Revel in the revelation
Our meditation programs are never designed; they are just revealed. There is a big difference between designing and revelation. Let us understand this first. This is the first thing which you need to understand. "Designed" means having prior information as to:
What does the customer want? What is supposed to be supplied? How best to package it? What is the purpose of the product? "Design" is an analysis of what you want to give, and how you want to market it. With all this information, with all this data, the product is created and marketed. "Revelation" needs just one thing: the need of the customer, that"s all, nothing else. What does the person in front of you need? Then, the Truth, as it should be expressed, simply comes out on its own! That is revelation.