Dreams 2

In fact, the French people think only they know how to kiss; nobody else knows. It is just a conditioning. These same people, this primitive tribe which has never kissed, rub noses with each other -- and they like it very much. It is their kiss. Now, you will feel a little awkward if somebody comes and starts rubbing his nose with your nose. You will say: "What are you doing? Have you gone crazy or something? Lips can be rubbed, but not noses. What are you doing?"

In love, you can kiss each other. There are tribes who salute each other by touching each other's tongues; that is their salute. The observer is not the observed -- then where does the observed spring from? And what about our continual projections? Is it all illusion? And yet, can't the nature of the illusion throw light on its creator-observer?

The word maya has to be understood. In English there is no equivalent word: "illusion" is not right.

In the east we call real that which is eternal, timelessly there; has always been, will always be, there was never a time when it was not -- this eternal we call the real, the true. Exactly opposite to it is the unreal, the untrue -- which has never been, will never be. Between the two is maya. Maya means that which appears to be and yet is not. It is just in the middle of the real and the unreal. It is a lie but it appears like truth. It is a decorated lie, and very convincing. When it is there it appears absolutely true; you know it.

In the night when you dream you never suspect. Even very skeptical people, atheists, don't suspect. In a dream there is nobody who suspects. Even great doubters who suspect everything don't suspect the dream; when the dream is there it appears absolutely true. Absurd things also look true.

When the dream is there it is real. It is so real that even absurdity does not make you doubt. In the morning when you open your eyes, suddenly it is unreal. Now from where had it come? It had come from your own unawareness. It was your projection. It was not there outside you, it was inside you; it was your game. And when you were so lost in it it became real. In the morning you are awake, the projection is withdrawn; you can see now that it was unreal.

Now what to call a dream? Call it real? It is not real because there was a time when it was not, and now again there is a time when it is not. Should we call it unreal? But then it was there in the middle. In the evening it was not, in the morning it is not again, but in the night it is there. So how can you call it unreal? So in the east we invented a new term. We call it maya: what is unreal but appears as real because of our unconsciousness.

Maya is almost like magic -- something which is not but can be made to appear as if it is. It shows something about you.

A dream shows something about the dreamer.

For example, if you dream about women, sex, and things like that, that simply shows that in your waking life you must be trying to be celibate, or you must be trying to go beyond sex. You must be repressing sexuality. The repressed bubbles up in your dream, becomes a projection. If in the night you dream always about fasting and dinners and things like that, that simply means you must be trying to starve yourself in some way or other. You must be fasting, or you may be a food-maniac. You must be doing something wrong; your body is not satisfied. That dissatisfaction arises in your dream. Or you are repressing something that arises in your dream. It simply shows that your life is not going rhythmically. There is something disturbing its rhythm. That disturbance arises in the dream, becomes a projection.

It shows something about the person who is dreaming.

"The observer is not the observed -- then where does the observed spring from?" It springs from the observer -- but the observer is fast asleep, has not yet become really an observer, is only potentially an observer, not actually. Out of that sleepiness, slumber, stupor, arise all sorts of illusions: you create them.

"And yet can the nature of the illusion throw light on its creator-observer?" Yes, it throws some light.

Let me tell you one very famous story of Idries Shah. Listen to it very attentively.

A certain quiet dervish often used to attend the weekly meals given by a cultivated and generous man. This circle was known as the "Assembly of The Cultured". The dervish never took part in the conversation but simply arrived, shook hands with all present, seated himself in a corner, and ate the food provided.

When the meeting was over he would stand up, say a word of farewell and thanks, and go his way. Nobody knew anything about him, though when he first appeared there were rumors that he was great saint. For a long time the other guests thought that he must indeed be a man of sanctity and knowledge and they looked forward to the time when he might impart some of his wisdom to them. Some of them even boasted of his attendance at their meetings to their friends, hinting at the special distinction which they felt in his presence.

Gradually, however, because they could feel no relationship with this man developing, the guests came to suspect that he was an imitator, perhaps a fraud Several of them felt uncomfortable in his presence. He seemed to do nothing to harmonize himself with the atmosphere, and didn't even contribute a proverb to the enlightened conversation which they had come to prize as a necessary part of their very lives.

A few, on the other hand, became unaware that he was there at all, since he drew no attention to himself.

One day the dervish spoke. He said: "I invite all of you to visit my monastery. Tomorrow night you shall eat with me."

This unexpected invitation caused a change in the opinions of the whole assembly. Some thought that the dervish, who was very poorly dressed, must be mad, and surely could provide them with nothing. Others considered his past behavior to have been a test. At last, they said to themselves, he would reward them for their patience in bearing with such dreary company. Still others said to one another: "Beware, for he may well be trying to lure us into his power."

Curiosity led them all, including their host, to accept the hospitality. The following evening the dervish led them from the house to a hidden monastery of such size and magnificence that they were dazed. The building was full of disciples carrying out every kind of exercise and task. The guests passed through contemplation halls filled with distinguished-looking sages who rose in respect and bowed at the dervish's approach. The feast which they were given surpassed all powers of description. The visitors were overwhelmed. All begged him to enroll them as disciples forthwith. But the dervish would only say to all their entreaties: "Wait until the morning."

Morning came and the guests, instead of waking in the luxurious silken beds to which they had been conducted the night before, clad in gorgeous robes, found themselves lying stiff and stark, dispersed on the ground within the stony confines of a huge and ugly ruin on a barren mountainside. There was no sign of the dervish, of the beautiful arabesques, the libraries, the fountains, the carpets.

"The infamous wretch has tricked us with the deceits of sorcery!," shouted the guests. They alternately condoled with and congratulated one another for their sufferings and for having at least seen through the villain, whose enchantments obviously wore off before he could achieve his evil purpose, whatever that might be.

Many of them attributed their escape to their own purity of mind. But what they did not know was that by the same means which he had used to conjure up the experience of the monastery, the dervish had made them believe that they were abandoned in a ruin. They were in fact in neither place.

He now approached the company as if from nowhere and said: "We shall return to the monastery." He waved his hands and all found themselves back in the palatial halls. Now they repented, for they immediately convinced themselves that the ruins had been the test and that this monastery was the true reality. Some muttered: "It is as well that he did not hear our criticisms. Even if he only teaches us this strange art it will have been worthwhile."

But the dervish waved his hands again and they found themselves at the table of the communal meal, which they had in fact never left.

The dervish was sitting in his customary corner eating his spiced rice as usual, saying nothing at all. And then watching him uneasily all heard his voice speak as if within their own breasts, though his lips didn't move.

He said: "While your greed makes it impossible for you to tell self-deceit from reality, there is nothing real which a dervish can show you -- only deceit. Those whose food is self-deceit and imagination can be fed only with deception and imagination."

Now all that you come to experience in life is nothing but your own desire.

Because you want to experience it, your mind conjures. Mind is a great magician. It is very tricky, it is the greatest magic show...your own mind. If you want to conjure something you will convince yourself. Even an ugly woman can become beautiful if you are full of desire.

Mulla Nasruddin always goes to a hill-station. Sometimes he goes for three weeks but comes back in ten days; sometimes he goes for four weeks and he's back within two weeks.
I inquired of him: "What is the matter? You had gone for six weeks and you are back within ten days."
He said: "There is a way to decide how long I should stay there."
I said: "Tell me what is your way? How do you decide?"
He said: "I have kept a very ugly woman to take care of my house there on the hill-station. She is so ugly and nauseating, repulsive. When I go to the hill-station, this is my way to judge how long I should stay: when by and by I start seeing beauty in that woman, I escape."

Sexuality goes on accumulating, your desire to have a woman goes on accumulating. Then there comes a point when you don't see what is; you see what you want to see. Then even an ugly woman, nauseating, repulsive, can become the most beautiful woman, can become a Cleopatra.

It is your desire that creates the trick. You can force yourself to believe anything whatsoever.

This mind is the origin of maya, of all the illusions that you live through. Once you start becoming aware of the mind, awareness is totally different from the mind. Then the observer arises, then you become an awareness.

When you become an awareness and you can see the games of the mind that have been playing with you for so many lives, suddenly you start laughing at the whole ridiculousness of it.

It depends on you. You kiss a woman's lips, you think it is very beautiful -- it depends on you. There are tribes in the world, primitive tribes, who never kiss. And when they came to know that people kiss each other, they laughed. They could not believe it.

In Thailand there is a primitive tribe which has never kissed, down through the centuries -- because they say it is so ugly to put lips on anybody else's lips and to exchange saliva. it is so ugly! If they ever came to know about the French kiss they would die laughing! Tongues moving into each other's tongues! But ask a Frenchman....

Westerners have been laughing about it. Just see: each tribe has managed to believe its own way. Many African tribes don't like women with hair. The women are shaved, then they become beautiful. Now, you cannot think women beautiful when they are shaved. They look like Buddhist nuns! And one feels an urgent desire to escape from them. Skulls without hair look ugly -- but that too is an idea. Thin lips are thought to be beautiful, but in Africa they like thick lips. They hang weights on their lips to make them more thick. Girls hang stones on their lips so their lips become very, very thick. You will think this is ugly, but this is beauty to them.

What is beauty and what is ugliness?

Just a mind concept. Nobody has yet been able up to now to define what beauty is, and nobody is ever going to be able to define what beauty is -- because beauty is nothing but your idea of it. You create beauty and you can believe in it; then it is beautiful. You can believe in ugliness, and it is ugly.
e that your mind conditions you towards certain things. And then you start looking for those
Just watch, and you will se things. And then you will project in your dreams, and by and by while you are awake you will project.

This is now a scientific finding: that if you are left alone, in isolation, for three weeks, you start conjuring up all sorts of dreams. If you are just left in a cave, everything supplied to you, but you are not allowed to talk to anybody -- food comes from a hole, water comes from a hole, and you are comfortable in the cave, you see no human being for three weeks -- just after the fourth day you start talking a little loudly. Ordinarily you talk inside, you go on chattering. But after four days of isolation your lips start moving. After the first week you start talking very loudly. What is happening?

And by the second week you are not only talking, you start answering too. You also talk for the other person who is not present. By the third week you are almost insane. What is happening? What happens in just three weeks' time? Left alone, the mind is starved of all outside things. It cannot remain without occupation, it creates its own occupation. It finds an image; it starts thinking a woman is sitting by your side. First you will laugh: "This is just a play!" First you will say: "I know that it is just to find occupation." But by and by you will forget completely, and the woman will become real You may start making love to the woman; you may start fighting, talking, quarreling. Now you are fully awake, with your eyes open, and the dream has become real.

Modern research about isolation and what happens in isolation is tremendously revealing.

Bring more awareness to your mind, otherwise you are always on the verge of going mad, of becoming mad.

There is not much difference between mad people and sane people. Sanity and insanity are only different by degrees. If you are sane you can become insane any moment. The bank goes bankrupt, or your wife dies, or your daughter elopes with somebody: just a little push and you go mad.

Madness is boiling within you; you are just close to it. Become aware. Mind is what maya is -- and all that is created by the mind is illusory, "mayic", magical. Mind is a magician, and if you watch this magician you will be surprised. It is beautiful to watch what beautiful games and dramas it creates. Watching it, by and by, it subsides. One day mind disappears; there is body and there is soul, but mind disappears.

When there is only body and soul and the mind has disappeared, you are enlightened. Enlightenment means the disappearance of the magician.by
k.jagadeesh 
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