Be Realistic: Plan for a Miracle

Be Realistic: Plan for a Miracle

Talks given from 13/3/76 to 6/4/76

Darshan Diary

22 Chapters

Year published: 1977

Be Realistic: Plan for a Miracle

Chapter #1

Chapter title: None

13 March 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 7603135

ShortTitle: PLAN01

Audio: No

Video: No

[A sannyasin asks about his work in the West and his relationship:... it's crazy that I should ask you these things... I've got my own mind.]

No, you ask... that is a way of making up your mind, mm? Now you are part of me and I am as much involved in you as you are -- even more. So don't think that you are crazy. Just tell me. Even telling me will be of much help.

I cannot decide for you, but I can help you to decide. These two things... something else? There must be a third thing also.

[He answers: Well... I have a tendency to be negative, critical, low energy... ]

Mm mm... because that third is the most basic, and these two are coming out of it.

If you feel a basic low energy, then you cannot make any decision. That is the problem for a low energy person, mm? You cannot decide -- you go on thinking and thinking and wavering your whole life. But remember one thing -- whether you decide or not, a decision is continuously being taken. Even if you can't decide -- that too is a decision.

For example, if you don't decide to leave this woman, you are deciding to be with her. The other is also as much a decision. Sometimes for a low energy person, the decision that looks like a no-decision becomes the only decision in life.

So what I will suggest is that you don't think that you have to change your profession.

Rather than think whether you have to do it, decide whether you are to remain a dentist. Do you want to remain a dentist? Don't decide the other thing... decide this.

And if you are not decisive, don't continue in it. Sit and meditate, and if you cannot decide, remain suspended. You follow my point? If you cannot decide this, then the same has to be done with the other -- because it is the same problem. The problem is the third.

That's why I insist that there is a third problem, more basic. These two are just off-shoots. And it always happens that off-shoots look like real problems. The real problem -- that you cannot face this reality of your being low energy, that you don't want it, that you don't like it -- is hiding somewhere else.

If you cannot make a decision, remain suspended -- and that suspension will help. It will help you to come out of it, or end it. Either way it will help... but you will have to take a decision.

What I am insisting is that it is going to be a very healthy exercise for you to decide. If you remain a dental surgeon, then it has to be your decision, not otherwise. It should not be like a no-decision... that's bad. You have been asking the question from the wrong side, and that's a trick of the mind. So always remember that a no-decision is also a decision.

For nine years you have continued to be a dental surgeon and you don't like it. That's suicidal. Nothing is wrong with dentistry. If you like it, it is beautiful. If you don't like it, it is poisonous. Anything that you don't like and you continue against yourself is going to create a very suicidal situation. And the more you remain in it, the less you will be capable of coming out of it, because habits become stronger and stronger. You will become more and more involved in it. And you will lose courage -- because the more you are in a profession, settled, comfortable, the more risky it becomes. For a dentist to become a musician after nine years is difficult.

After twenty years it will become impossible, because then the risk is too much; then you are moving onto the streets. So don't waste time!

If you don't like anything, whatsoever it is, to remain in it even for a single moment is suicidal. Then whatsoever the risk, come out of it. Because it is not only a question of coming out of it -- it will release your energy, and you will be able to commit it somewhere else. When you close one door, another opens. If you don't close this door, no other door opens -- because it is the same energy which has to open the other door.

If you go on clinging to one woman and you don't want her and you don't feel good, it is a constant trouble. It is not only poisonous to you, it is poisonous to her. If you are not kind to yourself, at least be kind to her; at least be human to her. Because it is not only that you are crippling yourself; you are crippling her also.

Any relationship that becomes miserable is going to cripple both the participants. Not only this relationship... if you remain in it too long it will cripple your future relationships also. It will affect them because it will become part of your past... it will hang around you. There is every possibility that you will again find the same type of woman -- and you will again get into trouble and go on repeating the same pattern.

So whenever you feel a relationship is not going well, I don't say come out of it -- I say jump out of it! Don't waste a single moment. There are millions of other women... one door closes, all other doors open. And the moment you move, another door will become possible for her also.

If you don't fit, that doesn't mean that you will not fit with anyone else. If she doesn't fit with you, that doesn't mean that she will not fit with anybody else. But you can be related to a person who doesn't fit. Neither you nor the other person is wrong. You simply don't fit... you are not made for each other.

You cannot do anything which will make you fit. If you try too hard to, you may start adjusting -- which is not fitting.

That is the greatest calamity that can happen to a relationship -- when two persons settle for adjustment. And if you are long enough in a difficult relationship, what can you do? You have to adjust. Then you settle for something that is not worthwhile. You drop all the romance of life and all poetry. Your life will lose all significance and grandeur. It will become very ordinary, very mundane... in fact, profane. It will lose the dimension of the sacred.

The sacred exists with the romantic, with the poetic. The sacred is adventure. It is risky -- but there is no other way to live. Danger is the only dimension.

Both your relationship with this woman and your profession come from your deep-rooted inability to decide. So you go on clinging; whatsoever the case, you will cling. But still, there is a possibility -- you have not settled yet. That's good. You are not yet adjusted... that's good... that gives hope.

But don't waste more time in it. Just take the jump out of it. At least at the most you can be a beggar, that's all (a chuckle). What is wrong in being a beggar? You can play on your guitar, sing, and you will be as happy as a king.

You can become rich by being a dental surgeon, and you can earn enough money to have a beautiful house and a beautiful car... but you will become ugly. Be realistic: plan for a miracle!

So go back, and immediately drop out of it. There is nothing to worry about. At the most one can become a beggar. At the most death can happen -- which is going to happen anyhow, mm? Take courage.... And I am coming with you.

Don't give it a single thought again -- just get out of it. All thinking is bourgeois. It is mediocre, middle class. Thinking is always cowardly. So don't think. Simply go and close all the old doors... and don't look back.

And if there is any trouble, come back, mm? This ashram is yours, so come back. Don't be worried... I can find you one of the best women in the world (laughter). Mm? I manage all sorts of things!

[A sannyasin says: I received a very strange letter today. My father requested that I say hello to you -- which surprised me very much... I think that's his way of asking for your blessing.]

Mm... strange things happen. Life is more strange than any fiction... and more fictitious also.

If one goes on believing and trusting, one comes to encounter miracles every moment. Just because we have lost the capacity to trust, much of the miraculous has disappeared from the world.

So write him a hello from me, mm? (laughter) Good!

[The Tao group was present tonight.... The basic idea of Tao is just 'going with the flow'. One group member says: It was very good. I got insights into things I had never seen before.]

You look good... very positive energy.

Once you feel something inside, not only the mind changes, but the body has a different vibe, mm? One is more flowing, more relaxed, more at home. One feels blessed. Life doesn't look like a problem... it looks more like a play, a mystery play (a chuckle), mm? Good.

[Another group member says: I feel alone... and just good, but confused. I don't know what is happening.

Things are changing around inside me.... Sometimes I feel frightened, sometimes it's floating.]

Mm, it is natural. Whenever you feel frightened, just relax. Accept the fact that fear is there, but don't do anything about it. Neglect it; don't pay any attention to it.

Watch the body. There should not be any tension in it. If tension doesn't exist in the body, the fear disappears automatically. Fear makes a certain tense state in the body, to get rooted in it. If the body is relaxed, fear is bound to disappear. A relaxed person cannot be scared. You cannot frighten a relaxed person. Even if fear comes, it will come like a wave... it will not get roots.

And fear coming and going like waves and you remaining untouched by it, is beautiful. When it gets rooted in you and starts growing in you, then it becomes a growth, a canceric growth. Then it cripples your inner organism.

So whenever you feel frightened, the one thing to look at is that the body should not be tense. Lie down on the floor and relax... relaxation is the antidote for fear... and it will come and go. You simply watch.

That watching should not be of interest -- indifferent. One just accepts that it's okay. The day is hot -- what can you do? The body is perspiring... one has to pass through it. The evening is coming close, and a cool breeze will be blowing.... So just watch it and be relaxed.

Once you have the knack of it, and you will have it soon -- that if you are relaxed, fear cannot get attached to you, that it comes and goes and leaves you unscarred -- then you have the key. And it will come... it will come. Because the more we change, the more fear will be coming.

Every change creates fear, because every change is putting you into the unfamiliar, into a strange world. If nothing changes and everything remains static, you will never have any fear. That means, if everything is dead, you will not be afraid.

For example, you are sitting down and there is a rock Lying down. There is no problem -- you will look at the rock, and everything is okay. Suddenly the rock starts walking -- you become frightened. Aliveness! Movement creates fear; and if everything is unmoving, there is no fear.

That's why people, afraid of getting into fearful situations, arrange a life of no change. Everything remains the same and a person follows a dead routine -- completely oblivious that life is a flux. He remains in an island of his own making in which nothing changes. Mm? -- the same room, the same photographs, the same furniture, the same house, the same habits, the same slippers -- everything the same. The same brand of cigarettes; even a different brand you won't like. Between this, amidst this sameness, one feels at ease.

People live almost in their graves. What you call a convenient and comfortable life is nothing but a subtle grave. So when you start changing, when you start on the journey of inner space, when you become an astronaut of the inner space, and everything is changing so fast, every moment is trembling with fear. So more and more fear has to be faced.

Let it be there. By and by you will start enjoying the changes so much that you will be ready at any cost. Change will give you vitality... more aliveness, zest, energy. Then you will not be like a pond -- closed from everywhere, not moving. You will become like a river flowing towards the unknown, and towards the ocean where the river becomes lost.

[The sannyasin asks: I have one more thing... my parents -- can you do something for them ? Especially my mother, because her body is very ill. I would like to give you their pictures.]

I will do something... I have got their thread from you. You are part of your parents, mm? When a son is converted, half the father is gone! (laughter)

[Another sannyasin who had done the Tao group, said that she felt a sense of frustration, because although things seemed to be happening, she felt she was still just standing on the same spot. She added that she felt a sense of expansion in herself.]

The feeling is meaningful. One is really on the same place -- because the change is not outside you... it is inside.

The journey is inner. Everything remains the same, and yet not the same. So you feel both together -- that the journey is going very fast, and yet you are standing on the same place. That paradox is very significant. Don't be worried about it... it happens to everybody who starts changing inwardly, mm? Because the trees are the same, the houses are the same, the people are the same... the world is the same. And yet something has changed which is very elusive, and you cannot put your finger on it. You cannot say exactly what has changed. If somebody insists on knowing what has changed in you, you will not be able to say.

The change is in the layers of consciousness.... It is as if you have been to the mountains. The path moves round and round and round, and after walking for miles, again you come to the same spot where you had been a few hours before -- just a little below. Everything is the same -- the same scenery, the same trees, the same rocks -- and you have walked so much.